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HARVARD UNIVERSITY 




LIBRARY 

OF THIS 

PEABODY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN 
ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY 

IN EXCHANGE WITH 




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UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS 



VOLUME III 



PHILADELPHIA 

THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM 

1910-1914 



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/I us. no. 37. 13 [3 



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CONTENTS. 



Number 1. Excavations on the Island of Pseira, Crete, 
Richard B. Seager, pages 1 to 38, plates I to IX. 



Number 2. Excavations in Eastern Crete, Sphoungaras, 
Edith H. Hall, pages 39 to 73, plates X to XVI. 



Number 3. Excavations in Eastern Crete, Vrokastro, 
Edith H. HaJl, pages 74 to 185, plates XVII to XXXV. 



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UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 

THE MUSEUM 

ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS 

VOL. Ill NO. 1 



EXCAVATIONS ON THE ISLAND 
OF PSEIRA, CRETE 

BY 

RICHARD B. SEAGER 



PHILADELPHIA 
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM 

1910 



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CONTENTS 



PACK 

THE DISCOVERY OF THE SITE AND THE SEASON'S WORK. . 4 

THE ISLAND 5 

THE TOWN SITE 7 

The Houses * 11 

THE POTTERY 15 

The Eauly Minoan Period 15 

Eakly Minoan 1 15 

Early Minoan II 16 

Early Minoan III 16 

The Middle Minoan Period 17 

Middle Minoan 1 17 

Middle Minoan III 19 

The Late Minoan Period 20 

Late Minoan 1 20 

THE STONE VASES 32 



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EXCAVATIONS ON THE ISLAND OF 
PSEIRA, CRETE 



THE DISCOVERY OF THE SITE AND THE SEASON'S WORK. 

Our attention was first called to the Minoan settlement on the island of 
Pseira in 1903, when we learned from a- Turkish boatman of the existence 
there of old walls and potsherds. On visiting the spot it was clear that we 
had to do with a town similar to that at Goumia, but as Mrs. Hawes was 
then occupied with the excavations at that site, no trial was made until 1906, 
when, after a short season at Vasiliki, I crossed to Pseira for three days with 
twenty workmen. The results of these three days were such that it was 
decided to make Pseira the objective point of the work in 1907. 

I was assisted by Mr. B. H. Berry, who remained through the season, and, 
in addition to the arduous work of making the plan and keeping an illustrated 
catalogue of the finds, was able to make some pen and ink sketches of the 
site, one of which is given in Plate II. 

Work began on May 13th and continued until July 20th, making only 
about eight weeks of actual digging owing to the numerous interruptions 
caused by church holidays. The lack of water was our greatest diflBculty, as 
it had to be brought by boat from springs on the mainland opposite. These 
springs, one at the Tholos of Kavousi, the other at the foot of some cliffs to 
the east, rise in holes dug in the sandy beaches, and in rough weather are 
entirely submerged. Except on one occasion we were able to keep at the excava- 
tions a suflBcient supply for two days. Aside from this difficulty the men made 
themselves fairly comfortable in small bush huts, returning to their villages 
on Saturday nights to lay in their weekly stock of provisions. A small quasi 
cistern of the Roman period lying on the top of the point in the center of the 
excavations was converted into a temporary kitchen for our own use, tents 
having been brought over for sleeping purposes. 

THE ISLAND. 

The island of Pseira is a barren mass of rock rising from the sea at 
a point some two miles off the coast of Crete opposite the plain of Kavousi. 
Northwards from Pacheia Ammos a chain of rocky hills bounds the Kavousi 

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6 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

valley on the west, descending in great cliffs into the Gulf of Mirabello. At 
the Tholos of Kavousi this chain, through some convulsion of nature, has 
been submerged ; the isolated mass of Pseira, however, is beyond doubt a con- 
tinuation of the same sj^stem, and rises abruptly from the sea on the western 
side. The position of the island is well shown in the sketch plan given in 
Vol. T, Part, i, page 9, of the Transactions. 

The island measures some two miles north and south and at no point is 
more than a mile in width. The west coast is formed by a line of huge cliffs, 
which rise sheer from the sea to a height of 800 feet; on the east the 
land slopes sharply down to the shore. The eastern coast line is indented by 
three sandy coves separated from one another by tongues of land, the central 
one of which juts out into the sea for some two hundred yards. On the top 
and sides of this narrow point and on the adjoining hillside to the south 
once lay a flourishing Minoan settlement which evidently owed its existence 
to the excellent harborage for small craft offered by the sheltered cove on the 
south side of the point. It is exposed solely to the east, and an easterly gale 
is a thing of rare occurrence in Cretan waters (Plate III). 

On the topmost ridge of the island on the edge of the high cliffs on the 
west lie the remains of a Roman military camp, probably a beacon station 
connected with similar posts at Kalo Khorio, Pacheia Ammos, the Tholos of 
Kavousi and on the island of Mochlos, which lies further to the east. Another 
small group of buildings occupies the center of the Minoan town on the 
long point before described, but owing to its limited area, this occupation 
did but little damage to the earlier structures. 

Aside from the harbor the island could have offered but little to attract 
settlers of any sort even in Minoan days. Although numerous terrace walls 
show that the hillsides were once cultivated, the area was too small and 
the soil too scanty to attract an agricultural population. The Minoans 
were preeminently a maritime people, and all their settlements in Eastern 
Crete point to communities of traders and seamen rather than to a nation of 
husbandmen. On a coast affording so few places of refuge to sailing craft 
a good harbor was of primary importance to euclt settlers, and that the 
inhabitants of Minoan Pseira owed their extraordinary prosperity to their 
sheltered port seems very probable. Gournia, which had no harbor, never 
attained the same wealth or showed such signs of close intercourse with 
Knossos, the capital city of Crete, although it was probably the local seat 
of government. Even in the present day the port of the ancient Minoan 
town is constantly used in case of a sudden gale by the numerous sponge 
fishermen who work the Cretan waters on their way to and from the Libyan 
coast. 



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n. B. SEAGER — EXCAVATIONS AT PSEIRA^ CRETE. 7 

However much soil may have covered the rocky slopes of the island in 
Minoan times, in the 3,500 or more }'ears which have passed since the destruc- 
tion of the town the work of denudation has progressed to such an extent that 
the greater part of Pseira presents a bare and inhospitable surface. Except 
for an occasional herd of goats which are left there to feed during the winter 
months the island is absolutely deserted, and our arrival with eighty men 
is probably the largest invasion of its solitudes that has taken place since 
Roman times. 

The water supply of the island seems to have been scanty. In the town itself 
no traces of wells or cisterns have as yet been found, a fact which would lead 
one to suppose that the townspeople were supplied by springs which have ceased 
to flow. A tradition exists among the country people on the opposite coast that 
there was once fresh water on Pseira, but in the present day the only supply is 
that held in a large cavity of natural rock close to the Eoman ruins on the 
topmost ridge. This cavity is lined with Roman cement, but it must have 
furnished a precarious and inconvenient water supply, for in summer it 
would have been dry, and it lay at some distance from the town site. A 
single well, dating from the Roman or even an earlier period, has been 
found, sunk in the sand beach of a cove, a little to the north of the town 
site. It has walls of roughly dressed stones very like the Minoan house 
walls, and the water level is reached by a flight of eight steps formed of 
flat slabs. Owing to the general subsidence which is apparent on all this 
part of the coast, the sea has encroached so near to the well that the water is 
now brackish. Possibly this is the origin of the tradition about the presence of 
fresh water on the island. At any rate, tlie well musf have remained open 
until fairly recent times. No objects have been found in the well itself, which 
can be assigned to pre-Roman times, but close to its mouth trial trenches have 
revealed parts of several Minoan houses of various periods and above them 
Roman remains showing that this cove was occupied in the same manner and 
at the same periods as the town site itself. 

On the north side of the island the land is level but absolutely destitute 
of soil, and, as far as can be discovered, bears no traces of early occupation. 
On several parts of the south and east slopes sherds of Greek pottery, one 
of the late red-figured style, have been picked up, but so far no remains of a 
, Greek building have come to light, although a thorough examination of the 
Roman buildings on the ridge and on the point may reveal the existence of 
Greek remains under their foundations. 

A cemetery has been located on the southeast face of the island about 
half a mile from the town. Thirty-three graves have been opened, but the 
results are reserved for discussion in another place. 



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8 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OP PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

THE TOWN SITE. 

The town of Pseira closely resembles the neighboring town excavated at 
Gournia, as will be seen by the plan (Plate I), but lies more picturesquely, a 
huddle of streets and houses along the top and sides of a rocky point with 
long flights of steps descending at irregular intervals to the water^s edge. The 
small harbor lies on the south side of this point and here must have been the 
old landing place; from the head of this cove two main roads ascend, one on 
the left to the Late Minoan I houses on the south hill and the other on the 
right in a long stepway to the top of the rocky point which was the center of 
the town in all periods (Plate IV). Just below the summit of the hill this 
stepway branches into four, perhaps five, roads which traverse all parts of the 
flat hilltop. These roads along the level are never paved, but possess a more 
or less even floor of natural rock, whereas all the side alleys leading down to 
the sea have paved stepways, which are well preserved to-day. 

The masonry is all of heavy, sometimes roughly squared blocks of stone, 
very strongly built in the style usually associated with the Late Minoan I 
period, but underlying these are many walls of the Middle Minoan I era. 
These walls are usually of lighter, smaller stones than those used in the 
upper stratum, although there is little or no means of separating the two 
periods by their wall construction.^ There is no use of ashlar masonry on 
any part of the site and no house that can be compared to the Palace at 
Gournia, although three of the larger houses described below seem to have 
been those of important citizens. Unlike the corresponding settlements at 
Gournia and Vasiliki, bricks seem not to have been used in house construction, 
and the upper walls as well as many of the floors are entirely of stone. This 
fact may be the result of the difficulty in transporting bricks, which would 
necessarily have been brought from the mainland, but is also due, at least in 
part, to the abundance of excellent building material ready at hand and requir- 
ing but little labor. The island is composed in part of a hard gray limestone, 
stratified in many places close to the site, in thin layers with softer stone 
between, so that it can easily be broken off to form excellent building material 
for the walls of upper stories. For floors a soft slaty stone is used, which covers 
the hillside at the back of the town and splits into large slabs. In almost 
every house the upper floor is made of these slabs, which are always found 
blocking the basement rooms. In some cases, noticeably in the big house of 
H 12, Room 6 (see Plate I), these floors were still in their approximate 
positions, as apparently the basements had filled with rubbish before the 

*Cf. the Early Minoan II and Middle Minoan I houses at Vasiliki, where the 
heavy outer walls and large brides generally diaracteristic of the Late Minoan I 
period were used. 



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R. B. SEAQER — KXOAVATIONS AT PSSIRA^ CRETB. 9 

supporting beams of wood had rotted away, bo that the upper floors, level with 
the thresholds of its rooms, were still clearly visible. Unfortunately the walls 
of this house, owing to the weight of the massive superstructure, were so 
thrown out of the perpendicular that all the upper courses had to be removed 
before the rooms could be cleared. 

This universal use of stone accounts for the fragmentary condition of 
the pottery, of which unbroken specimens were very rare, as the falling in of 
stone floors and walls caused great destruction to everything except the 
heavier and coarser objects. The roads, in many places where the walls had 
fallen outwards, were blocked with masses of stones, the removal of which 
was the most serious diflBculty encountered on the site. The earth, on the other 
hand, was easily disposed of, as from almost every house the dumping was 
over the cliffs into the sea below, and thus in two months we were able to 
clear the unusually large number of rooms shown on the plan. 

In the trial dig of 1906 it was seen that Pseira was already a settlement 
of importance in the Middle Minoan I period ; the later excavations have shown 
that the site was occupied as early as the Early Minoan II epoch. Owing to 
the uneven surface of the rock on which the earlier foundations were laid many 
relics of the first houses remained in the subsequent rebuildings of the Middle 
Minoan III and Late Minoan I periods, for in these rebuildings the walls were 
not always placed upon a rock foundation, but, where the surface of the 
natural rock was uneven, the fragments of earlier habitations were left in holes 
and crevices. The Early Minoan III and Middle Minoan I levels were every- 
where closely connected, and in places it was hard to distinguish them. In 
fact, it would appear that no destruction and general rebuilding took place 
in these two periods and that one merged gradually into the other with no 
distinct line of demarcation. 

Under the floors of Late Minoan I and, Middle Minoan III houses there 
was in many cases a deposit of Middle Minoan I sherds associated with house 
walls, and, in these same houses, directly underlying the Middle Minoan I 
deposits, sometimes mixed with them, were fragments of Early Minoan III 
vases. From this it would appear that the people of the Middle Minoan I 
period still used the houses of the preceding period., but usually formed a new 
floor at a slightly higher level. This close connection between these early 
periods confirms the belief that they extended over no great space of years; 
in the Early Minoan II period one already finds the beginnings of a light on 
dark style of pottery, which is the prevailing Early Minoan III ware and the 
forerunner of the polychrome vases of the Middle Minoan I period. 

The exact extent of the town in the Middle Minoan I era is doubtful, but 
that it was confined to the point and did not cover its entire area seems prob- 
able, as no sherds of the early periods have been found on the south hill or on 
the north side of the point except at one place in K 11, where a few sherds 



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10 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

and a hoard of obsidian flakes and cores indicated the site of an Early Minoan 

11 or possibly an Early Minoan I building. The place was destroyed in 
the Middle Minoan I period and not rebuilt until the Middle Minoan III 
period, when the era of its greatest prosperity began, an era which was 
continued without interruption until the town was overtaken by the same 
general catastrophe which destroyed all the settlements in this part of Crete. 
Unlike Goumia and Palaiokastro, it never recovered from this blow, and after 
the end of the Late Minoan I period was apparently deserted. 

Although the stratification of the earlier periods is interesting, as it 
confirms the conclusions drawn from other sites, it is to the Late Minoan I 
period that we must turn for the bulk of the finds and the best pre- 
served houses. On all sites the period of destruction is the one which leaves the 
richest harvest for the excavator. As long as a site is in continuous occupation 
the earlier deposits are only the refuse of breakage and objects which have 
ceased to be of service to their owners. They are thrown into rubbish heaps and 
used as artificial fillings to make even floors over naturally uneven surfaces. 
Where, as at Pseira, the town was destroyed in the height of its prosperity 
with no extensive later settlements to disturb its ruins the finds are of course 
unusually rich. If the town had come to an end with its first destruction in 
the Middle Minoan I era the same would have been the case with the remains 
of that period, but, as we have seen, the rebuilding which t(Jok place in the 
Middle Minoan III and Late Minoan I periods destroyed nearly all that 
remained of the earlier houses. From the end of the Late Minoan I era, 
however, to which period must be assigned the final catastrophe, no settlers 
appeared on the site until Roman times, and even then in ver)c,small numbers. 
Their houses occupied a space some 20 by 30 metres square on the top of the 
point, and probably destroyed only two or three houses of the earlier period. 

The Late Minoan I town had increased considerably in size and the 
overcrowding of the point caused the formation of a new quarter on the hill 
to the south of the cove, nearly doubling the original area of habitation. 
The streets, long stepways and heavy well built house walls belong to this 
period of expansion which came to an untimely end in one of the first 
upheavals that eventually involved the overthrow of the Cretan maritime 
supremacy in the Aegean. This uneasy period of invasions and wars of which 
these destructions of East Cretan towns are the precursors eventually brought 
about the sack of Knossos, the capital city, and thus dealt a death blow to 
the Minoan kingdom as a united whole. It is not yet clear whether this 
was caused by internal wars or by the pressure of the wild tribes of the north, 
but the fact that these small islands were not resettled shows that the loss of 
maritime power rendered them unsafe and open to attack by sea. While Crete 



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R. B. SEAOER — EXCAVATIONS AT PSEIRA, CRETE. 11 

Btill held the control of the Aegean a small island like Pseira was safe enough^ 
and that such a settlement could attain the prosperity shown by the masses of 
stone vases, the big painted jars (PL A'll) and the plaster relief (PI. V) 
proves that the people of the Late Minoan I period lived in a state of peace 
and security utterly unprepared to withstand an armed foe. Once the 
blow had fallen and the sea power was overthrown a small island was 
too precarious a place for a town, and the survivors of the catastrophe 
took refuge in some of the neighboring coast settlements which partially 
recovered their prosperity. On the mainland in case of attack the people 
could seek refuge in the hills, but on Pseira their only means of flight 
was by sea, and even this was impossible without long warning of the enemy's 
approach. 

The painted plaster relief and the big painted jars of the "Palace Style'* 
show not only a prosperous community, but one enjoying close communication 
with Knossos. Moreover, it is important to note that Knossian products are 
found in contexts which would otherwise have been thought earlier; in other 
words, Late Minoan II Palace style vases are found in Late Minoan I 
deposits. Now it is certain that Pseira was never occupied in the Late 
Minoan II period; accordingly these vases must have been made where the 
Palace style had already attained a foothold. This would naturally have 
been Knossos, where this ware first appeared at the end of the Late 
Minoan I period and soon attained great popularity. Thus while the towns 
in the east of Crete were still making ware 'of the Late Minoan I style, 
stray vases of this later technique had already begun to find their way from 
Knossos to these remote settlements. No doubt had the destruction occurred 
a few years later or had there been an immediate resettlement of tlie town, 
the Palace style would have been found the prevailing ware as at Palaio- 
kastro, where such a resettlement actually took place and where the Late 
Minoan II Palace style can be said to represent a distinct period. On the 
isthmus, however, the disaster was of too overwhelming a nature to allow an 
immediate revival, and even at Gournia there was no Late Minoan II period, 
the rebuilding of the west slope taking place in the Late Minoan III epoch, 
after the Palace style had degenerated into a highly conventional form. The 
few Palace style vases from Gournia are, as at Pseira, either foreign to the site 
or at most an attempt by the local potter to copy designs that he had seen else- 
where. In speaking, then, of the Late Minoan I period at Pseira we must con- 
sider that it probably overlaps the Late Minoan II period of Knossos and that 
the Late Minoan I pottery persisted for a longer time on these small sites than 
it did at the artistic headquarters of the kingdom, where the new styles must 
naturally have originated. 



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12 anthropological pub. univ. op pa. museum, vol. iii. 

The Houses. 

Turning to the left from the head of the main stepway in H 8 (see plan), 
we reach the house in I 5, which is of peculiar interest, as it reproduces on a 
small scale many of the features of Knoasian architecture. 

Crossing the threshold, a narrow passage (1) leads into an open space (3). 
From here one enters a small megaron (2) through a triple doorway sup- 
ported on two stone bases with the dowel holes for fastening the wooden door 
posts. In one comer of this megaron is a small rectangular construction 
divided from the main room by a low partition of upright slabs of greenish 
schist. A round outlet hole in the paved floor which shows traces of a plaster 
coating makes it probable that we have here a small bath. As the swallow 
hole is so large that it was hardly meant to be plugged, the bath was probably 
never filled, but contained an earthenware vessel from which the water could 
be poured over the bather. Between this bath and the south wall of the 
megaron a double door with a stone base for the central post leads into a 
passage also connecting with the main entrance of the house. Behind the 
bath a small stone stair leads toward an upper floor which must have contained 
the principal living rooms. This house is one of the latest additions to the 
towTi just before its destruction and belongs to the period when the Palace 
style of pottery of Knossos was just reaching Eastern Crete, as is shown by 
fragments of a small jug of this class of imported ware. 

Farther along the unexcavated road on which lies the house just described 
is found another house in J 3. It lies on the summit of the knoll, with rooms 
terraced down the hill on both sides. It is of the usual type, but peculiar, 
inasmuch as it overlies a more ancient building, three rooms of which, 1, 2 
and 3, were filled with masses of round beach pebbles. This deposit was about 
50 centimeters deep and must have been much greater originally, as in build- 
ing the later house the upper layers had been cut away. The workmen at once 
recognized these pebbles as sling stones, and it is probable that this was really 
their use and that the building was a kind of primitive arsenal.^ 

Turning down the small alley behind the house with the bath we reach 
another narrow stepway which leads down to a lower roadway running along 
the side of the ravine north and south. In G 5 this road crossed the torrent 
bed to the south hill, where a large part of it has been carried away. 
All the houses in 6. H. 3-7 open on this roadway, and among them one is 



* I am indebted to Dr. Georg Karo for calling my attention to the fact that 
Mr. Tsountas In his excavations in the Cyclades found round towers filled with 
similar pebbles which he also considers sling stonen (Taoimtas, *e^. ''ApY. 1899, 
p. 120). That such weapons were used is shown In the siege scene on the silver 
vase-fragment from Myceuae (Tsountas and Manatt, The Myeenean Age, p. 213). 



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n. B. 8EA0ER — EXCAVATIONS AT P8EIRA, CRETE* IZ 

especially noticeable for its massive outer wialls and huge threshold. In this 
house^ H 4, there were only two narrow basements on the road level (1, 2). 
Their back walls were formed by a ledge of natural rock, which with the 
heavy street wall supported the rooms of the upper floor. To these a stone 
stair ascended from the paved entrance hall, but as the soil at this point was 
very shallow little could be learned as to size or plan of these upper rooms 
except that they could also be reached from the back, where a second entrance 
connected them with the narrow stepway mentioned above. 

The only objects found lay in the basements 1 and 2, into which they had 
fallen when the upper floors gave way. A jar from this hoard shown in Fig. 
13, is a good specimen of the local Late Minoan I ware in Eastern Crete. Jars 
of this sort were very common at Pseira, and several were also found at 
Goumia. The work as a rule is coarse and the execution of the design careless. 
White paint for details and added red bands are very noticeable on jars of this 
class, which, though far from beautiful, hold- the eye by their bold design. 

The most remarkable features of the domestic architecture of the houses 
on Pseira are the interior staircases of stone, found in almost every house and 
best shown in these houses along the south slope. The steepness of the hill 
and the fact that the light walls of the smaller houses were not strong enough 
to support a heavy superstructure caused each house to be built in terraces 
connected by stone stairs leading from one tier of rooms to those on the higher 
level. Thus a single house would contain a number of floors yet never 
stand more than two stories high at any one point. Such houses are well 
shown in the siege scene on the silver vase-fragment from Mycenae ; in fact, 
they can be found to-day in Cretan hill villages which closely resemble in con- 
struction their predecessors of Minoan times. In some cases, where the outer 
walls are built of unusually heavy stones, the superstructure may have been 
higher, but the general type was a large house climbing the hillside with not 
more than one floor of living rooms over the basements of each tier. 

Returning once more to the head of the main stepway in H 8, which, 
oddly enough, has no house opening into it from top to bottom, we find 
the first road on the right leading into the middle of a large building 
with no distinct threshold or entrance hall. The rooms of this house, which 
I have called House A, are all of large size, and the presence of a column 
base in R. 5, very heavy buttresses and thick walls show it possessed important 
upper floors which opened on another roadway in H 10 at a higher level. 

The south part of this house which lies on the edge of the cliff has been 
broken away, so that its exact extent cannot be determined ; moreover, the shal- 
low soil of the upper tier has obliterated all traces of the rooms in that direc- 
tion. Scattered along the lower road and evidently dropped by plunderers 
lay five stone vases which speak for the original contents of the house. In quality 



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14 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MCSEUM, VOL. III. 

of stone and finish they are excelled by no other finds of the season, and 
although little else was found in the house, they show that it must have 
belonged to a wealthy citizen (Fig. lb I m). This house is rivaled in point 
of size by only one other (House B in H 12), and both of fiiem are much 
larger than any of the houses at Gournia excepting, of course, the small 
palace at that site. This may be explained by saying that Gournia was the 
seat of the local governor of this part of the ancient Minoan kingdom, although 
the small town of Pseira was the more prosperous of the two. Gournia 
would certainly have been the more suitable residence for the local official, 
as it lay on the mainland in what was a populous district in Minoan times, 
if we may judge from the many remains of that period in the immediate 
neighborhood. 

The second road on the right from the head of the main stepway has not 
been entirely cleared, but it is plain that just before reaching the entrance of 
the above mentioned house a branch leads east from it while the main part 
descends at a slight angle to H 11, where it turns sharply down the hill in a 
broad stepway paved with massive slabs. At the top of this stepway to the 
east a very large threshold leads into House B, the largest cleared thus far 
on the island. Like House A, this appears to have beenfmerely the house of 
a wealthy citizen, and in plan and construction differs in no way from its 
humbler neighbors. Its large size and important upper floors required massive 
walls of large stones, which in some places were preserved to a height of three 
metres. Like the smaller houses, this also climbed the hill in tiers, of which 
we can count four reaching from the water^s edge to the summit of the point. 

The outer wall facing the road is built of roughly squared blocks of stone 
approaching ashlar masonry. From the threshold one enters a paved ante- 
room or entrance hall (2), and this connects in turn with the rooms lying over 
the deep basements of the second tier (5, 7). From the north side of this 
entrance hall a narrow stone stair ascends to the third tier of rooms, in only 
one of which (4) were any objects found. From room No. 3 of this tier 
another stair leads to the rooms of the fourth and last tier lying on the actual 
hilltop, but the soil at this point was so shallow and had been so disturbed in 
Roman times that no trace of their plan remains. The first tier, close 
to the water^s edge, was also very much destroyed, and its walls were so 
thrown out of perpendicular by the weight of earth above that the few 
that remained collapsed as soon as cleared. Like the entrance hall, the 
rooms on the same level with it over the basements of the second tier 
were all paved with large slabs, some nearly a metre square. In Eoom 5 this 
paved floor was still in its approximate position, the basement having filled 
with debris before the supports of the upper floor had given way. 

From various parts of this house came the best finds of the season, chiefly 



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R. B. SEAGER— EXCAVATIONS AT PSEIRA^ CRETE. 15 

of vases and stone lamps, but, judging from the fragments scattered about 
the rooms, they represented but a small part of its original contents. The 
road outside the main entrance was filled with hundreds of fragments of fine 
painted cups and vases, which seemed to have been thrown out at the time 
the place was sacked. This sack must have been carried out thoroughly, 
as no metal or any small portable objects were left behind. The pottery seemed 
to have been wantonly destroyed ; parts of the same vase were found scattered 
through various rooms of the house as though they had been broken and then 
kicked about the floors. Parts of the stone lamp (Fig. 19) were found in 
Rooms 4, 5 and 7, while the bottle in Fig. 8 came from Rooms 7, 8 and 9. 

On the north side of the hilltop in J, K, 11-15, were a number of 
rooms which belonged to a row of houses standing along the edge of the 
cliffs. The easternmost of these houses are not clearly distinguishable one 
from another owing to Roman foundation walls which were sunk into their 
deposits and also to the fact that the greater part of each house, because of the 
corrosion of the cliffs, has slipped into the sea. 

In J 13 we find the probable continuation of one of the roads starting 
east from the head of the main stepway so often referred to. Immediately on 
the left of this road lie the walls of a small but well built house, J, K, 12. 
The main entrance leading into R. 4 is reached from a small alley which turns 
off the main road on the left. Room 4 lay on the upper floor over a low base- 
ment, and owing to the sharp slope of the ground at this point is on the same 
level as the ground floor room or court marked No. 1, which lies higher up 
the hillside. Room 1 seems to have been a small paved court with a sort of 
portico across the north side which led to the rooms entered from the street 
2 and 4. In the narrow portico, evidently fallen from an upper floor, 
were parts of a plaster relief representing a Minoan queen or goddess in a 
richly embroidered dress. Because of the shallow soil at this point the 
surviving fragments were very rotten, and only those in fullest relief had 
withstood the action of time. These include one breast, arms and part of the 
skirt, which are shown in PI. V, where a conjectural restoration of the bust 
has been attempted. Aside from this relief the house was a singularly empty 
one, probably because it was more carefully plundered than its neighbors. 
The few potsherds found all belong to the Late Minoan I period, which 
lingered on here after the Late Minoan II Palace style, with its great frescoes 
and reliefs, had already commenced at Knossos. 

Further along the ridge in I, 14, 15 another large house (D) has 
been partially cleared. In size it rivals the two neighboring houses already 
described, and, judging from the objects found, was an equally rich one. The 
heavy walk and massive buttresses again indicate important upper floors. One 
of the basements, 2, was lighted by a window and used as a storeroom. Both 



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16 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OP PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

I 

2 and 5 have paved floors and connect with the rooms behind by a doorway. 
In 5 nine large jars were found standing in a row along the south wall of 
the room on each side of the doorway. All except two were painted with 
bands of poor dark paint, but these two belong to a very different class. One 
is shown in Fig. 9 and the other is quite like it except for a difference in the 
rim. It is hard to explain the presence of such jars in a narrow dark store- 
room, where the plain unpainted jar would have fulfilled the same purpose. 
Possibly they were hidden there among the others on the chance that they 
might be overlooked by the spoilers. 

Apparently these rooms, 2, 3, 5, were the result of a rebuilding of this 
part of the house on a more regular plan, as the very irregular range of 
rooms in I 15 belongs to the same building. In a comer of 1 is a curious 
semicircular construction of solid masonry exactly similar to one found in a 
room of the Palace at Gournia. At about 1.50 m. from the ground the 
outer circle, of masonry ends, making a shelf about .30 m. broad, while the 
central core rises about .30 m. higher, making a second shelf or platform 
in the comer. From its resemblance to the fireplaces seen to-day in many of 
the Cretan inns, this was probably its use, although no traces of fire were 
found. 

Of the other houses which lie still farther along the point little can be 
said except that they repeat the usual features of these small Minoan dwell- 
ings and contained no objects of especial interest. 

In I 16 two more roads were found leading up towards the summit of 
the hill, and it is clear that the houses extended to the very end of the point, 
which has evidently subsided to a considerable degree. Many of the houses 
are now drenched by spray in a heavy storm, and others still lower on the 
rock at the end of the point have been almost completely swept away by the 
action of the waves. 



THE POTTERY. 

The Early Minoan Period. 

early minoan i. 

Of the Early Minoan I period there are no traces on the point excepting 
a large 'hoard of obsidian cores and flakes associated with early potsherds in 
K 11, R. 1. These sherds are of coarse gritty clay, black or brown, and very 
highly burnished. One piece of a cover and a cup with suspension handles 
have a very early look, although they might equally well belong to the first 
part of the succeeding period. 



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K, B. SEAGER — EXCAVATIONS AT PSEIRA^ CRETE. 



17 



EARLY MINOAN n. 

Almost all the rock crevices on the hill were filled with fragments of this 
period, both the mottled red and black and the dark on light geometric 
techniques being represented. Under the floor of Boom 4 in House A a 
large deposit of this period came to light, including a perfect jug of the mot- 
tled style and a side-spouted jar of the common Vasiliki type {Trans,, Vol. I, 
Part III, PI. XXXIV, Nos. 6 and 7), with a geometrical design in white, 
showing the influence of the succeeding period. The wares of this period 
are not essentially different from those found at Vasiliki in 1904 and 1906, 
and as no new shapes or styles occurred, they do not require any further 
description. 

The stratification, where it could be recognized, carried out what had 
already been noted at Vasiliki and elsewhere, that the dark on light geometric 
ware lay immediately beneath the light on dark Early Minoan III pottery, 
while the mottled technique was found in both deposits, though to a far 
lesser degree in the latter. 

EARLY MINOAN III. 

The town which occupied a small area during the preceding period now 
attained considerable size. The principal deposits of this ware came from 
rock crevices under the Late Minoan I floors in G 6 and on the summit of 





Fig. 1. 



Fig. 2. 



the point H. 4, where the Later Minoan I walls did not reach the under- 
lying strata owing to the depth of soil. No remains of this period have as 
yet been found under the Late Minoan I houses on the south hill. 

Judging from the masses of sherds in some of the rock holes this period was 
a long one, merging gradually into the Middle Minoan I period with no distinct 
line of separation such as marks the end of the Middle Minoan I and Late 
Minoan I periods on this site. In many cases the Early Minoan III and Middle 
^linoan I deposits were very much confused, and a certain type of cup (Pigs. 
1 and 2) seemed to form a connecting link between the two and occurred 



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18 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



with the remains of both periods. This type did not appear in the Early 
Minoan III deposits of Vasiliki, where decorated cups of this shape were 
always without handles, but was found at Palaiokastro {B, S. A. XI, p. 271, 
Fig. 5d), in Middle Minoan I deposits; moreover, several undeeorated cups 
of this type came from the Middle Minoan I house B at Vasiliki. On the 
other hand, this same type occurred in several undoubtedly Early Minoan III 
graves in the cemetery. These cups are occasionally decorated with a festoon 
in red paint, thus foreshadowing the Middle Minoan I polychrome style. 
The appearance of this type of cup in both periods emphasizes the close con- 
nection between them uninterrupted by any overwhelming disaster. 

The Middle Minoan Period. 

middle minoan i. 

The soil in I 6 was unusually deep owing to the gradual slope of 
the hill at this point, and it was soon evident that the Late Minoan I 
floors were not laid on a rock foundation. Below these floors the walls of 




Fig. 3. 

an earlier Middle Minoan I house were found. .It was orientated like the later 
house, and in many cases the Late Minoan I walls were laid on the top of 
those of the earlier building. Unfortunately at certain points this was not 
the case, and the Late Minoan I builders had sunk their foundations deep 
into the Middle Minoan I deposits. Owing to this fact almost no objects 
were found entire, but that the original house would have proved a rich one 
was shown by the parts of nine stone vases and many more in clay. Three 
of the stone vases were found entire, one of which is shown in Fig. 15, and 
is a typical example of the low open bowl so much in vogue in this period. 



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n. B. SEAGER — EXCAVATIONS AT PSEIRA^ CRETE. 19 

The other fragmentary vases were, with one exception, parts of similar 
bowls of variona sizes, the exception being a cup in fine gray veined lime- 
stone with a trefoil spout. More important is the jug shown in Fig. 3. Its 
uptilted spout recalls some of the Early Minoan III shapes and the white 
design on a dark ground shows the simple beginnings of a curvilinear style 
but little removed from the methods of Early Minoan III decoration. 

Together with this jug were several large jars and covers representing 
the Middle Minoan I dark on light style, which was commonly used for all 
the larger, coarser vessels. This ware, three examples of which are shown in 
Fig. 4, is always characterized by its buflf clay and bold designs in slightly 
lustrous dark paint. The clay in the larger vessels is generally coarse, but 
in the small vases the designs are painted on a smooth buff slip which 
sometimes shows signs of polishing. The favorite designs are parallel sets of 
oblique lines running from the neck to the base of the vase, large scrolls like 
a running spiral pattern with the spirals filled in, and rectilinear designs 




-<» Fig. 4. 

like those on the vases of this class found at Vasiliki {Trans,, II, 2, p. 128, 
Figs. 11 and 12. 

Some of the smaller vases with the polished buflf slip and geometrical 
dark on light designs closely resemble the ware in use at the beginning of the 
Early Minoan II period, when the mottled technique is still in its earliest 
stages. The cups shown in Plate VI a and b came from H. 3, R. 3, and belong 
to this class except that here we have an added white paint, so com- 
bining both the dark on light and light on dark styles. The thinness and 
fine quality of the clay is very unusual in the dark on light wares of this 
period and shows that this style of decoration was sometimes used for vases 
of the better class. The other vessels from this deposit included a number of 
black glaze cups with festoons of white paint on the rim like those which 
characterized House B. at Vasiliki and which have also been found at 
Palaiokastro in the same context; also & small black glaze cup with a white 
fish, a design common in this period. {Trans,, Vol. I, Part III, p. 189, 
Fig. 6, IP.) {Id,, II, 2, PI. XXX 6.) 

Under the Late Minoan I floor in G. 7, R. 2, was found the curious 
vase shown in Fig. 5. As the deposit was characterized by masses of 



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20 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



Middle Minoan I cup fragments, there can be no doubt but that this vase 
belonged to the same period. The exaggerated shape and the large size of 
the vessel show that the Middle Minoan I era was by no means a primitive 
period and that no great transition was required to produce the exquisite 
polychrome pottery of Knossos with their curious shapes. In the case of this 
vase the shape was the principal consideration, and to emphasize it no decora- 
tion which could distract the eye was employed, half the body being painted 
with chalky white, the other half black. That the shape was derived from a 
metal prototype is shown by the clay rivet on the vertical handle, and though 
a metal vase of this shape may have had an especial use, its copy in clay was 
hardly practical but merely an example of the potter's skill. 







Fig. 5. 



MIDDLE MINOAN III. 



That the resettlement of the island took place near the end of the Middle 
Minoan period seems clear from extensive rubbish heaps found among the Late 
Minoan I houses of a kind of ware which immediately precedes the typical Late 
Minoan I style of pottery. This ware is of very fine quality and in it we see 
that the dark on light designs of the succeeding period already predominate 
over the old Middle Minoan I light on dark style. The light on dark technique 
is in a decided minority and consists usually of a monochrome white design 
on a dark ground. The dark on light style is confined almost entirely to 
variations of the ripple motive, w4th no sign of the naturalistic plant designs 



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R. B. SEAGER — EXCAVATIONS AT PSEIRA^ CRETE. 21 

SO much in vogue in the Middle Minoan III and Late Minoan I periods. 
The vases are usually hole-mouthed jugs and low open howls, the latter of 
which commonly have the ripple both inside and out, also a similar style 
made of broad wavy brush marks. White paint is sometimes used for details 
on broad dark bands, but there is no trace of the Late Minoan I red. 
This style of pottery may be said to occupy an intermediate stage between 
the true Middle Minoan III ware of Kjiossos and the typical Late Minoan I 
fabrics, and cannot truly be said to belong to either class. As true Middle 
Minoan III pottery has not been found so far on any of the sites in this 
neighborhood, I have called this ware by that name to distinguish it from 
the later Late Minoan I wares of which it is the forenmner. The deposits of 
this style were all very fragmentary, no vases entire and none that could be 
made up from fragments. The evidence shows that it was a period of reset- 
tlement and merged into the Late Minoan I period very shortly after- 
wards, when the town was entirely rebuilt. 

The Late Minoax Period, 
late minoan i. 

The Late Minoan I local pottery of Pseira presents much the same 
characteristics as that of Goumia, which is to say the prevailing designs are 
drawn from plant life or from marine objects. The ripple design, which, 
as I have said, attained such great popularity in the Middle Minoan III 
period, did not easily die out, and on some of the best Late Minoan I vases 
we find it occurring combined with designs typical of that period (Fig. 
6). The use of white paint for details begins at the end of the Mid- 
dle Minoan III period and later a chalky red is introduced for the same pur- 
pose. The monochrome light on dark Middle Minoan III style persists in 
many black glaze cups with a design in white around the rim. Of these cups 
the commonest type is straight sided with a slightly flaring rim encircled by a 
band of very stiff and regular white spirals.* 

For the Middle Minoan III ripple vases a very fine buff slip had been 
revived, which recalls the polished buff slips of Early Minoan II and Middle 
Minoan I vases, except that the new slip possessed a harder surface and pre- 
sented a more brilliant appearance. The use of the slip increased to such 
an extent in the Late Minoan I period that it is unusual to find a decorated 
vase without it. The paint used is in itself very lustrous and when com- 
bined with the polished slip gives to the surface of the Late Minoan I 
vases, where well preserved, a finish unequaled by the ware of any of 

* Cf. Qournid, Plate VI, Fig. 35. 



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22 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



the preceding periods. On all large jars which are of coarse gritty clay 
this slip was valuable to give a smooth surface for the painted design^ 
although it was not universally used, for a thin buff wash was some- 
times substituted. The jars with this buff wash are always of an inferior 
sort, decorated with either plain bands or coarse plant designs in very 
lustrous paint. 

Another type is occasionally found which recalls the Middle Minoan I 
period and in a lesser degree the polished dark subneolithic ware of Early 




Fig. 6. 

Minoan II. These are cups and jugs of dark gray clay of fine quality covered 
with a shiny black varnish which peels away from the surface very easily. 
This is an archaistic revival of an older style and is sometimes noticed in 
Middle Minoan I vases, although it does not appear to have ever become pop- 
ular, judging from the few examples found. Small jars were very frequently 
found with crude flowers, usually a lily, incised when the clay was still moist 
in place of a painted design. 

Another archaism is found on several clay bulls from the town, which 
are covered with a chalky white slip, over which is painted a harness in either 



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m. IL :iUt.\OI»- V\C \V VtK>\^ At IP^VII^V. OI^Vt«K 



«3 



fiftid to Uvet$i^ bulls: «l Wsi$t 1 \K^ ih>< Kih^w \\( xt^ >w>4i^ \x^\ )ftiv> xA^(>if^ <^t th^ 
period. Th*t « whut^ hxiU w*5i tln^ f*wr\to *A\TttW\i^l \uom j^m^v* oUna^ «^w^l 

this ot^ll^nlri:5^ uiK\>muHU\ whiu'^ x4\iv 

One of tht? nK^t eurum* fiiH^t^ *Kmf tlH> fiu^h^ \xf ihi?* in^rixnl >»iw tho >hi\)«4>» 




Fig. 7. 

vo8wl8 wore found piivo by piivo in vuriou* nuunH of I ho wnno bo\ii*o i\\\\\ 
Homotimoa w^attortnl ovor ovon iv lnr^»r Hrt>n. Ono luuall U\\\\\\ (Ki^* ^^) 
was found in 11. 1\?, U. 8, oarly in tho noaKon, wntl on llio \\\M {\\\y i(M 
handio turnoil up in I. 11, It. iV. Whon wo nMutunbor IhnI llio \ippor 
walU of nio8t of tho houniHt woro of Mtouo um woII nii Ihoir lloorn, IhU U 
not 80 surprininff, aM tho (Uvlruolion ]>ro)Mibly h'ft nuiny honnoM Ktaudlu^ In 
a partly ruinod oondition and aoroMKihlo to any wandororM who ud^hl rot urn 
to the site. Thua in n\any caHOH partM of a vaMo nuiy havo boon ploKod \ipi 
carried a little diHtanoe ai\d droppod \\^\\\\\ If itoiuothln^ oUo wait found of 
greater value. (Hay vanoH, aa wo havo miid, nuiftt havo boon knookod olT front 
Bhelvea when tho houHo wa» iaokod and thoir fragnionin noallorod about tho 



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24 ANTHBOPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM^ VOL. III. 

rooms as too bulky and worthless a form of plunder. The sack, com- 
bined with the falling in of so many stone walls and floors, left very few 
vases entire, although the large jars, which were heavy and not easily over- 
turned, were unusually complete. 

As is always the case on these town sites, many houses were entirely 
empty, and the finds of clay vases came from certain large deposits which by 
some chance escaped utter destruction. Dealing with these deposits first, 
there are in all fifteen vases, for the most part cups and bowls, which come 
from D. 5, E. 1, a new house of which only part of one room has been 
opened up. This room was filled with thousands of finely decorated 
Late Minoan I sherds, from which the above mentioned vases were put 
together. Twelve baskets of painted potsherds and as many again of coarser 
vessels represent the breakage of an enormous mass of pottery which must 
have formed the stock of a dealer. These vases, though good examples of 
their class, present no new features, the designs being for the most part plant 
wreaths and similar motives. 

The next deposit in House A. would seem to have fallen into a basement 
room under the entrance hall, where we find the threshold opening oflE the 
upper road — H. 10, E. 1. The two best vases from this deposit are shown 
in Fig. 6 and PI. VI c. One, the tall amphora (Fig. 6) with the ripple and 
plant motives, is a shape more characteristic of the preceding than of the Late 
Minoan I period, but the designs and the use of white paint for the details 
show it must be classed early in this period. The other vase (PI. VI c) is a 
very good example of the Late Minoan I style at its best. The influence of the 
Middle Minoan light on dark technique is still very strong, as shown by the ivy 
pattern in white on the central band, while the ivy leaves with spiral volutes are 
very typical of the period to which the vase belongs. A clay bull similar to the 
one in Fig. 7 was found with the vases and is painted in a way already 
described, with an orange harness over the white body slip. Three such bulls 
were found entire or nearly so, also parts of three others. All but one of these 
bulls appear to have been made from the same mould, probably turned out by 
the local potter for votive-offerings, or, as Mr. Dawkins suggests (5. S. A,, 
Vol. XI, p. 287), as a cheap substitute for sacrifice used by the townspeople in 
their religious ceremonies. It seems probable that each household had its own 
little shrine, for Gournia is the only place where a town shrine has been discov- 
ered. In the poorer houses these shrines must have been of the simplest type 
with accessory cult objects of a perishable character, but in houses of the better 
class on several sites what appear to have been the remains of domestic shrines 
have been found {B. 8. A., Vol. X, p. 216).* In House B. E. 4 parts of a 

'At Palaikastro there seems to have been a Minoan shrine on the site of the 
later temple of Dictean Zeus which may be a town shrine such as the one at 
Goumla (B. 8. A., Vol. XI, p. 287). 



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R. B. SEAGER — EXCAVATIONS AT PSEIRA^ CRETE. 



25 



large clay bull's head were found and nearby a narrow ledge of small beach 
pebbles which may have served such a use, as the late shrine in the palace of 




Fig. 8. 

Knossos shows that such beach pebbles were employed for altars. Near this 
ledge was found a triton shell cut out inside to form a vessel, and this again 



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26 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

recalls a Knossian ehrine, for in the Middle Minoan III shrine of the Snake 
Goddess shells were associated with cult objects. At Pseira a number of 
such shells have been found, in different houses, usually cut out inside in 
the way just described, and evidence points to the fact that shells of all sorts 
were associated in some way with Minoan ritual. 

To return to the pottery once more, some of the best finds of the year were 
made in House B. and in every case had fallen into the deep basements from 
the rooms of the upper floors. The flask or filler of Fig. 8 comes from 
this house and is one of the class of vessels showing strong influences of the 
Late Minoan II Palace style. The motive is evidently that of the date 
palm, and although the stiil architectural style of the full Palace period is 
lacking, it needsonly a step, and an easy one at that, to produce the splendid 
Palace style jars of Knossos with the lotus and papyrus designs. The design 
on the n'eck is quite unlike the true Late Minoan I style ; moreover, this shape 
of bottle filler seems not to have made its appearance until the end of the 
Late Minoan I period, when it attains popularity almost to the exclusion of 
the conical straight sided filler. This straight eided shape survives in the 
Late Minoan III period after the bottle style has disappeared with the end of 
the Late Minoan II pottery. 

The only other vase from this house (R. 1) which is in any way remark- 
able is the large jar shown in Plate VII, which is, without doubt, one of tlie 
finest examples of the Late Minoan I period that has been found thus far in 
Crete. The profuse use of white paint for the details, the presence of chalky 
red band on the rim prove that it belongs to the Late Minoan I style at the 
last stage of its development. The design of bulls' heads and double axes is 
itself conventionally treated, but such designs in which sacred emblems play an 
important part do not lend themselves easily to naturalistic treatment. It is 
in the olive sprays that fill the spaces between the stiff heads that we see the 
love of naturalism which characterizes the artist of this period, and in this 
case they help to lighten the heaviness of the whole design. The lower zones 
of decoration are splendid examples of the various types of spirals, ivy leaves 
and plant rosettes with which the Late Minoan I potters loved to cover their 
vases, and which one meets again and again on every class of ware from the 
end of the Middle Minoan III to the beginning of the Late Minoan II 
period. From the profuse use of the double axe motive it is probable that this 
jar was reserved for some ritual use. The double axe appears on the top and 
sides of the rim, on the shoulder between the horns and heads of the bulls, 
and on the base, and even the handles take their form from the same cult 
object. The large axes on the shoulder bear on their blades the same designs 
worked in white paint that occur so often on the axes figured on seal stones 
and in scenes of ritual worship, and must be taken to represent the actual 



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B. B. SEAGEB — EXCAVATIONS AT PSEIBA^ CBETB. 27 

manner in which the original objects themselves were decorated. It is possible 
that these details in white may stand for the exact reproductions in a paint 
medium of metal axes inlaid with silver wire, an art not unknown to the 
Minoan goldsmiths. The rim is very deeply undercut and pierced with a row 
of small holes through which a coarse needle could be passed to sew on cloth 
covering over the top of the jar, so as to exclude all dust from defiling the 
contents. It may be that the jar was used for holding oil or some other liquid 
sacred to the gods, in which case this cover would keep the contents pure, 
whereas an earthenware cover would never fit closely enough to exclude dust 
from sifting in. The splendid results obtained by the Late Minoan I polished 
slip are well shown here where the rather coarse clay is covered by a heavy coat 
of finer clay so polished that no sign is visible of the rough material of which 
the vase is formed. The bulls' heads are painted in dark glaze with harness of 
white, which rather contradicts the theory that the bull most acceptable to the 
divinities should be white, but in this case a white head on the light bufif slip 
would have been nearly invisible, and a light design on a light ground would, 
as far as we know, have been contrary to all Minoan traditions of vase paint- 
ing. The white harness is also a divergence from the usual harness of orange 
red, but it seems that here the exigencies of the case obliged the artist to 
adopt new methods more suitable to his background on which his designs 
must of necessity be in dark glaze. With this vase we reach the highest stage 
of development in Late Minoan I ceramic art, which in point of paint, 
glaze and slip is unsurpassed by either earlier or later wares in Minoan Crete. 

The bull's head before mentioned came also from this house, but, unfor- 
tunately, the greater part of it is missing. This head is rather larger than 
those from other sites and has the greater part of one of the horns intact, 
which, as a rule, are lacking on the other heads. Like the clay bulls from 
other parts of the site, it is covered with a chalky white slip. The closed neck 
shows that it was never attached to a body. 

The next vase deposit to be described was found in House D, in the two 
basement rooms 2 and 5. In E. 5, among a number of small pithoi, was 
found the jar of Fig. 9. Another larger one, an exact duplicate except for 
the rim, was found with it, and seemed to have been filled with some very fine 
plaster. These two jars were standing, as stated above, p. 14, together with 
seven coarser ones of a very inferior quality. Their original use must have 
been a purely decorative one, as their very slender base and heavy rim render 
them a very unsafe receptacle for any material. 

The most curious feature of the jar in Fig. 9 is the moulded rim. Dr. 
Mackenzie tells me that fragments of such rims have been found at Enossos, 
and I believe they have appeared at Phaistos also; but no one has had any 
very clear idea as to what sort of vessels they came from. The body is of 



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28 



ANTHEOPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



coarse clay covered with the usual polished buff slip, except around the rim, 
where the same chalky white already noticed on the bulls has been employed. 




Fig. 9. 

The whole body of the jar except for a zone near the base is covered with a 
network of connected spirals in dark glaze picked out with white dots. The 



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R. B. 8BAGEE — EXCAVATIONS AT PSEIBA^ CRETE. 



29 



lower zone, separated from the rest by dark bands, is decorated with a row of 
loose spirals. The background is filled in with dark glaze, leaving the pattern 
in the natural buff of the clay, a method new to these sites on the isthmus. The 




Fig. 10. 

network of spirals forcibly recalls certain architectural designs, and is in all 
probability a potter^s adaptation of designs from the walls and ceilings of the 
great Minoan palaces. The jar has the look of having been copied from a 
metal origiijal, and one can well imagine such a metal jar with the curious 
rim and spiral net in repousse, the white dots inlaid with silver. 



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30 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



In G. 7, E. 1, which was cleared in the three days^ trial made on 
the site in 1906, were found a splendid set of vases, three of which are 
sho^Ti in Figs. 10 and 11 and 12. Like the flask of Fig. 8 they might 
be classed as Late Minoan II were it not for the undoubted Late Minoan I 
character of all the objects associated with them. The flask or bottle filler 
with the dolphins, Fig. 10, was found lying partly inside one of the earlier 
conical fillers of which Gournia furnished such fine specimens in 1903. The 
old Middle Minoan I design of the fish again appears here, but the treatment 
is now rather more realistic, as the dolphins in this case are enmeshed in a net 
which covers the body of the vase. The design at once recalls the large fresco 
of dolphins from Knossos, so that again, as in the jar of Fig. 9, we find the 
potters copying designs from the walls of the Cretan palaces — in this case 
not so well adapted to their humble craft. 




The jar in Fig. 11 looks as though it belonged to the end of the Late 
Minoan II rather than to the end of the Late Minoan I period, the small 
barred stop-gaps between the curls of the volute being a design very common 
in the gold work of the last Minoan period (Evans, Prehistoric Tombs, p. 
130, Fig. 119, No. 75a). The whole design is highly conventionalized and 
shows that wherever these vases were made the Palace style was already at 
an advanced stage of its development. 

That these vases also represent a style foreign to the small Minoan towns 
on the Isthmus of Hierapetra is quite clear, as the clay, techniqi^ and whole 



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R. B. 8EAGEB — EXCAVATIONS AT PSEIRA, CRETE. 



31 



appearance of the vessels are utterly different from those of the local fabrics. 
The Zakro filler (J. //. S., XXII, p. 333, and Plate XII), the set of fillers 
from Palaiokastro {B. S. A,, Vol. IX, p. 311, Figs. 9 and 10), all belong to 
this class; similar also though of slightly earlier date is the fine octopus 
^'bugelkanne," from Gournia (Gournia, PI. H). At Melos also fragments 
of vases of this class came to light, and these were also regarded as imported 
fabrics probably from Crete {PhylaJcopi, p. 265, and Plate XXXI, Nos. 1, 2, 
3 and 5). 

In regard to these fillers which certainly served in religious ceremonies, 
it is a curious fact that they very seldom occur singly, but always in hoards. 
In this room were parts of five, a cover decorated with double axes, the 
basket-shaped vase of Fig. 12 and one of the clay bulls, PI. IX. At Gournia 
a number of fillers were found with a bull's head in clay and several vases of 
curious shape in a small house on the east slope. At Palaiokastro the same 




Fig. 12. 

thing occurred, so that we may perhaps conclude that each small town 
possessed a supply of these vessels, which were the property of the village 
priest and kept in his house. 

The basket-shaped vase of Fig. 12 may not be as late as it looks, owing 
to the character of the design, which does not admit of much freedom of 



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32 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

treatment. The curious shape and the abundant use of the double axe show 
that this vase was probably intended for ritual use. 

Another vase closely related to this group from G. 7, R. 1, was found in 
I. 3, R. 1. It is a very good example of the use made of marine designs, the 
nautilus, seaweed and rockwork adapting themselves extremely well to vase 
decoration. The shape of this vase again betrays a metal prototype as shown 
by the handle where the metal rivet fastening it to the body of the vase has 
been reproduced in clay. 

In J. 12, R. 1, there were found, as stated above, parts of a large plaster 
relief, evidently that of a woman, if we may judge by her richly embroidered 
dress and the conventional white color of the skin. The restoration shown in 
PI. V combines most of the remaining parts and, except for the left arm, 
may be considered correct. This left arm may have belonged to another 
figure, although the other fragments show no signs of the existence of a second 
relief. The plaster was in so rotten a state that the greater part of the sur- 
face had disintegrated beyond hope of recovery; but enough remains to give 
a vivid idea of the rich character of the dress. The colors are blue, white 




Fig. 13. 

and yellow, the first two predominating. The work is very delicate and the 
smallest details are drawn with a care that even now must excite admira- 
tion. As is often the case in these Minoan reliefs, the skirt and bust are the 
parts in highest relief, while the head was not in relief at all, but painted on 
the flat surface, no fragment of which remains. As in the pottery, we find 



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R. B. 8EAGER — EXCAVATIONS AT PSEIRA^ CRETE. 



33 



in Minoan embroidery many of the designs employed in architectural decora- 
tion. The border of rosettes on the left sleeve is a design of this sort which 




Fig. 14. 
also occurs in the jewelry of the later periods (Evans, Prehistoric TombSj p. 
130, Fig. 119,1^0. 66a). 



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34 ANTnilOPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

Unfortunately, the work on the bodice has almost disappeared, but enough 
is left to show that the form was of the usual decollete type affected by 
Minoan ladies, which left the breasts exposed. Around her neck are two neck- 
laces. The upper one, from its yellow color, must have been of large gold 
beads, with festoons of smaller beads hanging from a string of crescent shaped 
gold bars. The second necklace, which hangs much lower on the bosom, is 
blue, and no doubt is intended to represent a string of blue porcelain beads, 
which are often found in Minoan graves of all periods. These reliefs, in gesso 
duro, have always been found at Knossos associated with the remains of the 
later Palace, and have been classed as belonging to the Late Minoan II period. 
I^Teither at Gournia nor at Palaiokastro were there any traces of such reliefs, 
lind even the rulers of Phaistos and Hagia Triada seem to have contented 
(liemsclves with fresco painting on a flat surface. That such a thing should 
have come to light in the ruins of a small town on a barren island is a matter 
of no small astonishmcnt,*'and strengthens the idea that this must have been a 
settlement in close connection with the center of Minoan civilization. 



THE STONE VASES. 

The fragmentary condition of the pottery on this site was more than 
made up for by the enormous numbers of stone vases and lamps from all 
parts of the town. In all they amounted to about eighty-five objects. Hitherto 
thirty or even twenty stone vases in good condition had been considered a 
fair output for one season, but here, for some reason, the plunderers left the 
entire accumulation behind them, with the result that Pseira, from the town 
and cemetery combined, produced the huge total of 150 stone vases and lamps, 
of which the majority were in an excellent state of preservation. 

Any classification of these vases into distinctive periods is impossible, for, 
excepting the stone lamps and cup, we find that almost every type of vase 
found in the Late Minoan I houses has its origin as far back as the Middle 
Minoan I, or even an earlier period. 

The fact of their durability and the labor required to make even a small 
vase makes it probable that they were in most cases handed down from one 
generation to another, and the occurrence of a stone vessel in a Late Minoan 
I deposit gives not the slightest clue bb to the date of its manufacture. We 
know that Pseira, as a town, underwent complete destruction in the Middle 
Minoan I era, and was not occupied again until the Middle Minoan III period. - 
Therefore, unless the returning settlers brought many stone vases with them, 
we might assign those found in the Late Minoan I houses to that date. But 
that these people arrived empty handed, with no goods or chattels, is highly 
improbable, so that it is best to describe the objects without assigning them 



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R. B. SEAGKK — EXCAVATIONS AT l»SEIRA, CRETE. 



3r> 



to any definite period except in the case of the larger lamps and the stone 
goblet. Of these lamps three are of the pedestal type, Fig. 15 d, and four 
others with equally large basins stand on only a short foot. All these are 





Fig. 15. 

of steatite and each has cuttings for two wicks. In addition to these, which 
are all in a fair state of preservation, a number of pedestals were found from 
which the lamp basin had been broken away. Several of the lamps on a short 
foot had the base roughly trimmed, and it seems probable that they were all 
originally of the pedestal type, but, having been broken oflE, Btill continued 
to be used, the broken base being thrown away as valueless. 

Of the small lamps nine are of black steatite, three in reddish limestone 



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36 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

and two in pale green steatite of fine quality. One of the red stone lamps, 
from House B, is shown in Fig. 17, and is a fine example of its class. The 
collar of drooping leaves is a design which is characteristic of Late Minoan 
II art. 




Fig. 16. 

Fig. 15 gives the main types of small lamps and vases from the site. 
Although I know of no pedestal lamps earlier than the Middle Minoan I period, 
the short type of large lamp certainly occurs earlier, for in the Middle Minoan 
I House A at Vasiliki, five of this kind were found in 1906, but so rotted that 
it was impossible to preserve them. Of the smaller lamps, Fig. 15 J certainly 
belongs to the Late Minoan I period, as the collar of leaves neter occurs 
before that date. The vase c, in the same figure, belongs to a class of vessels 
which were found in the Koumasa tombs in great numbers and should be 
assigned to at least the Early Minoan II period. Of the ^T)lossom" bowls, 
two types, y and Ic, were found ; of these, ; is probably the earlier, although h 
occurs as far back as the Middle Minoan I era. With the type of fc the period 
is indicated by the profile, for the earliest examples have a curving outline, 
while in those of the Late Minoan I class the shoulder is higher and the out- 
line more angular. The type x is common in the deposits of all periods from 
the Middle Minoan I to the Late Minoan I period. The large bowl, Fig. 16, 
is a typical Middle Minoan shape and comes from a house of that date. I 
do not know of its ever occurring in Late Minoan I deposits, although in the 
Middle Minoan I houses it is the type most commonly found. 

The vase shown in Fig. 15 m, from tlie road outside House A, closely 
resembles in shape the famous warrior cup from Hagia Triada. A hammer 
head in gray veined marble is a type already known by examples from 
Palaiokastro {B, S, A., Vol. XI, p. 279), and from Hagia Triada {Hon, Ant., 
XIV, p. 56, Fig. 26). These hammer heads could not have been intended for 
actual use as such, owing to the fine quality of the stone and the fact that they 
so seldom show signs of wear. 

In Fig. 15 k and I are shown two large steatite vessels, the first from the 
road by House A, the other from House B, I}. 9; of these the second resem- 



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R. B. 8EAGER — EXCAVATIONS AT PSEIRA^ CRETE. 



37 



bles a cooking pot of the present day, while the other is a shape which recalls 
the much earlier painted pots so common in the Early Minoan III epoch, 
although it is not likely to be of that date, owing to the fine quality of the 




steatite. The black steatite in use in the earlier period is, as a rule, very 
poor in quality and quite inferior to that used for the better class of Late 
Minoan I stone vases. 

The best of the stone vases found at Pseira is the splendid vessel shown 
in Plate VIII, which exactly duplicates one found at Knossos {B. S. A., Vol. 
VI, 1899-1900, p. 30). The stone is a species of breccia of very hard quality, 
which occurs in large masses close to the site, possibly indicating that the vase 




Fig. 18. 

was made in the town. The house in which it was found, D. 5, R. 1, on the 
south hill, was characteristic of the Late Minoan I era, which would place this 
vase in that period, while those of Knossos were assigned to the Late Minoan 
II period. Just below the carved rim the vase is pierced on each side by 
two small holes, which were probably used for suspending it by means of cords 
when it was not in use. 

In the big house B parts of three delicate cups of white marble were 



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38 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. ITT. 



found of the type of PI. X d, and also two fragments of a marble plaque on 
which can be seen rows of ashlar masonry, evidently the walls of a large 
building. From the curiously irregular shape of this plaque, of which no 
two sides are of the same length, we conclude that it must have been part of 
a mosaic representing some sort of scene wdth buildings in the background. 

The only remaining object which presents any new features is the pretty 
lamp of Fig. 19, w^hich comes from House B, Eooms 4, 5 and 7. It is of 
the finest quality of brownish steatite and repeats the idea of the ^T^lossom" 
bowls, only here the flower is open instead of partly closed, as is usually the 
case. The workmanship is excellent, the carving in very sharp relief, and. 





with the exception of the vase in PI. VIII, this lamp is the best example of 
Minoan stone cutting found on the site. Although the vases were very 
numerous, it will be seen that they were confined to the very limited number 
of types shown in Fig. 15, which were picked out as the best examples of each 
variety. 

Two knife pommels in marble and a gold riveted blade show that the 
weapons were on a par with the other possessions of these Minoan villagers, 
but the scarcity of bronze in comparison with Gournia indicates that the sack 
of Pseira was of a more thorough nature than was the case with its mainland 
neighbor. Richard B. Seager. 



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ANTH. PUB. UNIV OF PA. MUSEUM VOL. II 



PLATE V 




PSEIRA. FRAGMENTS OF A PAINTED RELiEF WITH GJTLINES PARTLY RESTORED 



COCKArr^E. -BOSTON 



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ANTH. PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM VOL. Ill 



PLATE VI 




PSEIRA. A AND B MIDDLE MiNOAN I CUPS. Z LATE M.NGAN I JUG 



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JNIV. .JF PA MUSLUM VOL III 



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^SFIPA LATE MINOAN I VASE. 



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ANTH. PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM VOL. Ill 



PLATE Vlll 




PSEIRA BRECCIA VASE 



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UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 

THE MUSEUM 

ANTHROPO LOGICAL PUBLICATIONS 

V O L. I I I N O. 2 



EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE 
SPHOUNGARAS 



BY 

EDITH H. HALL 



PHILADELPHIA 
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM 

1912 



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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 43 

THE SPHOUNGARAS SLOPE AND ITS DEPOSITS 45 

THE NEOLITHIC DEPOSIT .46 

EARLY MINOAN DEPOSIT A 48 

EARLY MINOAN DEPOSIT B 53 

A GROUP OF MIDDLE MINOAN I VASES 56 

THE PITHOS-BURIALS 58 



41 



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EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE 
SPHOUNGARAS 



INTRODUCTION. 

Between the town of Gournia {Tovpvi,a) and the sea-coast 
to the north, stretches a valley which is flanked on the east by 
a limestone ridge called Elatso Mouri (*EXar<ro Movpt). At a 
distance of some 200 metres from the town the west face of this 
ridge is broken by a line of cliffs (PI. X) below which the hill 
slopes sharply away to the valley. It was along the upper 
margin of this slope, which goes by the name of Sphoungaras 
(S^ovyyapa^), that Mrs. C. H. Hawes in 1904^ found three 
Eariy Minoan rock-shelter burials. The general appearance of 
this slope — a steep and rocky slope facing southwest — corre- 
sponds so closely to that of the hills on Pseira and Mochlos 
where cemeteries were found, that since his excavations on these 
islands, Mr. R. B. Seager has regarded this hillside as a probable 
site not only for occasional Early Minoan interments like those 
found by Mrs. Hawes but also for the extensive burial-place of 
the town of Gournia. 

Accordingly the Sphoungaras slope was selected for excava- 
tion, and on March 31, 1910, eight men were set to digging trial 
trenches near the center of the hill. Within an hour the small 
gold ring of Fig. 24 came to light together with fragments of Early 
Minoan pottery and a few bones. The same day a burial in an in- 
verted pithos was discovered and near it many fragments of cups 
of a type associated both with Middle Minoan III and with Late 
Minoan I remains. It being thus apparent that we had to do with 
an extensive cemetery which was in use both in the Eariy Minoan 

* See Transactions of tfu Department of Archaeology of the University of Pennsyhania^ 
Vol /, Part III {iQOSh pp. 179-182 and Gournia, p. 56. 

43 



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44 ANTHBOPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. m. 

period and at a subsequent epoch in the bronze-age, it was 
decided to excavate the hill systematically with a larger force of 
workmen, and the next day, after trial trenches at the foot of the 
slope had determined the point where interments began, forty 
men were started in line at the foot of the hillside. The soil 
was found to be everywhere full of fragments of pithoi and 
lamakes and, here and there, where sufl5cient depth of earth 
remained, groups of unbroken pithoi came to light. Within the 
three weeks that the excavation lasted, 150 of these burial jars 
were found, the majority of which proved to be of Late Minoan I 
date. Since no burials of this period had been hitherto found, 
the Sphoungaras slope oflFered valuable evidence as to the method 
of interment employed in this epoch. Another result of the 
excavation was the recovery of Minoan skulls and bones which 
were so well preserved within their protecting walls of clay that 
twenty skulls could be saved, a few of which were in excellent 
condition. Some report of these skulls has already been made 
by Mr. C. H. Hawes in Report Brit. Ass. Trans. Sections^ 
Sheffieldy IQIO; Report on Cretan Anthropometry^ p. 3. 

The other results of the excavation were given over to me 
for publication, although the work was under Mr. Seager's 
direction; to his experience and information I have been con- 
stantly indebted in writing this report. The objects found went 
for the most part to the Candia Museum; a few specimens were 
granted to the University of Pennsylvania Museum in the name 
of which the work was carried on and from which we received a 
grant of money. We were fortunate in securing the services of 
the English architect, Mr. F. G. Newton, to draw a plan of the 
site. 



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EDITH H. HALL — ^EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CBETE. 46 

THE SPHOUNGARAS SLOPE AND ITS DEPOSITS 

The Sphoungaras slope, like many other steep hillsides of 
Crete, had been stripped of most of its soil. In this process of 
denudation the higher parts of the hill had become quite bare 
except here and there where the slipping soil had found lodgment 
against a boulder, or just below the cliflFs where the overhanging 
rock protected the earth below. Near the foot of the hill the 
deposit of earth was sufficient to cover the tall burial jars, 
although some of these lay only a few inches below the surface 
where, in view of the centuries during which this field had 
undergone cultivation, it seemed incredible that a plough had 
not reached them. The upper part of the hill had suflFered not 
only from the denudation of its soil, but also from the falling 
of boulders from the cliifs, which had seemingly broken up 
whatever pottery had not already been washed down the hill. 
The number of potsherds strewn about the lower slope bore 
witness to the extent of the havoc. Thus, when in the course 
of the excavations the upper part of the slope was reached, 
the deposit of earth together with the ancient remains came 
abruptly to an end and we saw that the area where the soil was 
deep enough to make excavations possible was confined to a 
comparatively narrow belt. There were however these excep- 
tions: just outside the cave which had been partially cleared by 
Mrs. Hawes, was found a considerable Early Minoan deposit 
(B on plan, PI. XV) ; at the top of the hill between the cliff and 
some boulders (C on plan) were found three pithoi together with 
fragments of others and as many as 8 skulls; lastly, some metres 
to the south — outside the limits of the plan — ^were found broken 
remnants of both Early and Late Minoan burials, which were 
evidently in their original position but had been crushed by 
fallen rocks. 

The interments could be divided into two main classes, 
(i) burials in the earth without pithoi, the general area of 
which is marked on the plan by hatched lines, and (2) burials in 



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46 



ANTHROPOIiOaiCAL PUB. UNIV. OP PA. MUSEUM, VOL. m. 



inverted pithoi each indicated on the plan by a circle. The 
pottery associated with the former was of Early Minoan II and 
Early Minoan III date, with an admixture of Middle Minoan I 
fabrics. The jars used in the latter class of burials were mostly 
of the Middle Minoan III and Late Minoan I periods although 
a few specimens, dating from the Middle Minoan I period, 
occurred. We have also to mention a small neolithic deposit 
which underlay the Early Minoan remains at the point marked 




Fig. 20. — Early Minoan II Plates. Scale 1:7. 

D on the plan. The walls which were found were practically 
negligible; only two or three small stretches came to light and 
these seemed to be the remains of short retaining walls rather 
than those of graves or tombs. The deposits will now be de- 
scribed in chronological order. 

THE NEOLITHIC DEPOSIT 

Ten metres south of the rock-shelter, under the Early 
Minoan deposit at the point marked D, there came to light a 
layer of black earth which was found to contain a neolithic de- 
posit, the first which has as yet appeared on the Isthmus of 
Hierapetra. The position of these remains so close to a cave, 
recalls the megalithic house at Magasa;^ but since in this case 

1 Sec R. M. Dawkins, B. S. A., XI (1904-1905), p. 263. 



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EDITH H. HALL — ^EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE. 



47 



no house-walls were found, we may suppose that a structure 
of some perishable material, perhaps a wattled mud hut, served 
as an extension to the narrow space available within the cave 
itself. No neolithic deposit was found in the cave or immedi^ 
ately outside it but this was to be expected inasmuch as it had 
been used as a burial place by the people of the Early Minoa;n 
period who would have probably cleared it out to make room 
for their dead. 

The objects found in this deposit were chiefly sherds of 
coarse clay shading from brown to black and containing particles 
of white sand. Their outer surface was generally of a brownish 




H > 

Fig. 21. — New Types of Early Minoan II Mottled Ware. Scale 1:4. 

red color and rudely finished. Mr. Duncan Mackenzie, who 
kindly examined these sherds for me, pronounced them to 
be a late neolithic fabric dating from the very end of the 
stone-age. Among these fragments was a wish bone handle like 
that found in the megalithic house at Magasa.^ 

There also occurred a worked bone like those from Magasa.* 
These analogies are striking, but the pottery seems to show that 

» Sec R. M. Dawkint, loc. cit.. Fig. 3, c, and PI. VIII, 27-29. 
* Ibid,, ?l Will, 11-18. 



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48 ANTHROPOLOQICAL PUB. UNIV. OP PA. MUSEUM, VOL. HI. 

our neolithic farmstead is later than the better built one at 
Magasa. 

EARLY MINOAN DEPOSIT A 

The first Early Minoan deposit which we have to describe 
(marked A on the plan) was on that part of the hill where digging 
began, and extending as it did over so large an area and yielding 
objects so similar to those found in the Early Minoan tombs at 
Mochlos, there was every indication that the cemetery was to 
date mainly from the Early Minoan age The deposit was from 
one to three feet deep and overlay hardpan or limestone so 
acted on by the acids of the soil as to render it soft. There 
was only one piece of wall found within this area. Just how the 
dead had been interred we could not determine; the bones 
which here came to light were so fragmentary that it was im- 
possible to say whether they belonged to primary or to secondary 
burials. They lay loose in the earth beside the vases and orna- 
ments that had been buried with the dead and were badly rotted. 
There were no traces of cremation. It is probable, in view of 
the evidence from other Cretan sites, that these were primary 
burials in "cists rudely built of small stones" like those noted 
by Mr. Hogarth in caves at Zakro^ and by Mr. Seager on 
Pseira, but it is also possible that lamakes were sometimes 
used in this period, for among the fragments of pottery found 
were many heavy sherds of coarse red clay which came from 
straight sided vessels like lamakes. 

By far the most common ware in this Early Minoan deposit 
was the red and black mottled pottery usually known as Vasiliki 
(BacrtXtKT/) ware after the place where it was first found.* 
The mottled colors were still in some instances fairly brilliant 
although in general the soil of the Sphoungaras hill had had a 
disastrous effect upon the painted surface. A feature peculiar 
to the specimens from the Sphoungaras hill was that the inside 
of the vase was frequently a uniform black. Often the black 

15. S.^., VII, p. 143. 

• See Seager, Transaciions, I, Part III, pp. 207-220. 



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EDITH H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE. 



49 



extended quite evenly over the top of the outside as if these 
vases, like the. black- topped ware from Egypt, had been placed 
upside down in a bed of coals. 

The commonest types were egg-cups of which 8 appeared 
and plates of which 1 1 were found and 8 could be restored. No 
illustrations of the egg-cups are given since they correspond 
so closely to those from Vasiliki;^ specimens of the plates are 
shown in Fig. 20. This shape has been found at Zakro^ and at 




Fig. 22. — ^Early Minoan II Pottery. Scale 1:3. 

Vasiliki,' but only a few specimens have been hitherto recovered. 
One plate in Fig. 20 has waved lines painted in white above 
the mottled surface — a method noted before* and practiced, 
evidently, at the very end of the Early Minoan II period. 

In addition to egg-cups and plates this deposit yielded other 
familiar types of mottled ware such as jugs and bridge-spouted 
bowls and also several new shapes, which are shown in Fig. 21. 

» B. S. A., VII, p. 143. 
t Loc. fit, PI. XXXIV. I. 

* Transactions ^ II, 2, p. Ii6. 

* Transactions, I, 3, p. Ii6. 



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50 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OP PA. MUSEX7M, VOL. HI. 

The jug is embellished by rows of punctuated dots arranged 
along the shoulder and from the shoulder to the neck. 

Together with the mottled red and black Vasiliki ware 
there also occurred in this deposit specimens of other Early 
Minoan II fabrics, shown in Fig. 22. These were: 

1. Small jug of coarse black clay with punctuated dots 
around neck (Fig. 22, b). 

2. Tiny jug of same clay. 

3. Rimmed jar with foot, of similar clay (Fig. 22, d). 

4. Fragments of a side-spouted cup with a hatched design in 
dark paint on the buff ground of the clay. A cup similar to 
this was found at Koumasa. 

5. Fragments of a round bodied jug of coarse buff clay (Fig. 
22, g). 

6. Mug of coarse red clay with heavy handle and spout 
(Fig. 22, c). 

7. Clay lamp similar to one found at Vasiliki (Fig. 22, a).^ 

8. "Fruit-stand** or cover (Fig 22,/).^ 

9. A curious vase with perforated sides, and handles in the 
form of animals. 

There were also found in this deposit the following specimens 
of Early Minoan III ware: 

1. Round-bodied cup with design of spirals connected by 
groups of lines (Fig. 23, e).^ 

2. Straight sided cup with design of festoons and dots 
(Fig. 23, i). 

3. Round-bodied cup with similar design. 

4. Cup, elliptical in section (Fig. 23, a). The lunettes and 
dots in the horizontal band of decoration on this cup did not 
come out even, apparently, so the potter cut one of the lunettes 
in two with three diagonal lines. 

» Transactions, II, 2, p. 122, Fig. 5, a, 

> Several specimens of this class of vases have been found by Mr. Seager at Mochloe and by 
Mr. Xanthoudides at Koumasa; the former thinks that they were not covers because no vases 
which they might fit have been found with them; the latter calls them covers because incised 
decoration has been found on the outside of some specimens. 

«Cf. Transactions, Vol. I, Part III, p. 200, and PI. XXVII. 



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EDITH H. HALL — ^EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE. 



61 



5- Similar cup also elliptical in section. Here the potter 
introduced a hatched triangle to make his design come out 
even (Fig. 23, c). 

6. Beaked jug, covered almost entirely with a black paint 
on which are horizontal bands of white and between them dotted 
triangles and festoons (Fig. 23,/). 

7. Similar jug with diagonal lines of white and hatched 
triangles on a dark paint ground (Fig. 23, d). 




Fig. 23. — Early Minoan III Cups and Jugs. Scale 1:3. 



The stone objects which were found in this deposit are 
as follows: 

1. Breccia bowl (4 cm. high; 6 cm. diam.), found with 
fragments of a lamax and a few scanty remnants of bones on 
the very outskirts of this deposit at a point marked E on the 
plan. 

2. Green steatite bowl with handle (2 cm. high; 5.1 cm. 
diam.), found in a mixed deposit containing both Middle Minoan 
I and Early Minoan III pottery. 



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52 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OP PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



3. Small translucent green soapstone lid with four perfo- 
rations (.046 m. diam.). 

4. Stone arrow-head. 

5. Heavy stone rings evidently used as weights. 

The soapstone lid and the arrow-head lay close together 
beside fragments of Early Minoan II plates, which fixes their 
date as Early Minoan II — a date already practic- 
ally certain since Mr. Seager's discovery of stone 
vases in Early Minoan II tombs on Mochlos. 
(^ In these Mochlos tombs such delicate little 

stone vases were associated with beautiful gold- 
work which rivals in technical perfection the 
finest jewelry of fifth century goldsmiths. The 
Sphoungaras cemetery did not yield such abund- 
ance of gold objects as was found in the Moch- 
los tombs, but two pendant chains, one of which 
is shown in Fig. 24, surpass in delicacy the finest 
specimens from the Mochlos gold treasure. 
The chains are double linked and exquisitely 
wrought; the heart-shaped ornaments at the end 
are of thin gold-leaf. These pendants lay quite 
close to sherds of Early Minoan II red and 
black mottled ware. The other gold objects from this deposit 
are also shown in Fig. 24; they are the gold ring already re- 
ferred to and a gold bead. 

Other objects of importance from this area were the 
following: 

I. Ivory seal (Fig. 25, a) roughly hemispherical and crudely 
modelled in the form of a bird's head. The hole for suspension 
passes from the top through the beak. The sealing surface 
shows, in intaglio, the figure of a inan standing between a four- 
legged animal and a snake (?). Similarly shaped seals have 
been found at Koumasa^ and at Agia Triada.^ The design on 




Fig. 24. — Gold 
Objects from Early 
Minoan Deposit A. 
Scale 2:3. 



* Unpublished. 

* Unpublished. 



Here the seal is in the shape of a horse's head. 



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EDITH H. HALL — ^EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE. 



53 



the sealing surface must be regarded as the prototype of those 
representations of goddesses standing between animals or birds 
heraldically placed, which are so charac- 
teristic of Cretan culture. 

2. Ivory seal with curved top and 
geometric design on the sealing surface 
(Fig. 25, i). 

This seal is similar to one from a 
house on Mochlos.^ It may be compared, 
also, to two unpublished seals from Agia 
Triada (Nos. 463 and 438 in the Candia 
Museum Catalog), and to a seal published 
in Mem. R. 1st. Lotnb.j 1904, Vol. XXI, 
Tav. X. 

3. Small ivory spindle whorl. 

4. Ivory idol (head missing) like 
those from Koumisa and one from Agia 
Triada published in Mem. R. 1st. Lomh.y 
1904, Vol. XXI, Tav. XI, lower row, sec- 
ond from the right end. 

5. Bronze tweezers or snuffers (Fig. 26). 

6. Triton shells. 




Fig. 25. — Early Minoan II 
Ivory Seals. Scale 2:3. 




Fig. 26. — Bronze Tweezers from Early Minoan Deposit A. Scale 2:3. 

EARLY MINOAN DEPOSIT B 

The other Early Minoan deposit on the Sphoungaras hill began 
at a point one metre from the opening of the rock-shelter and ex- 
tended west along the cliff and then south over the small neolithic 
stratum described on p. 46. A part of this area had been already 
explored by Mrs. Hawes and had yielded a number of vases.* 

»^. /. ^.,XIII (1909), p. 280. 

« See Transactions, Vol. I, Part III, p. 179 f., and Gournia, p. 56. The vases here pub- 
lished must now, in the light of subsequent excavations, be regarded as Early Minoan II, not 
as Early Minoan I. 



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64 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OP PA. MUSEUM, VOL. m. 



The pottery from this deposit is shown in Fig. 27 and is as 
follows: 

1. Bird-shaped vase (Fig. 27, g). 

2. Three-legged lamp (Fig. 27,/). 

3. Later Middle Minoan III or Late Minoan I lamp, which 
must have worked down from a higher level (Fig. 27, h). 

4. Small "flower-pot" of coarse black clay (Fig. 27, e). 




Fig. 27. — E^rly Minoan II Pottery from Deposit B. Scale 3:4. 

5. Four clay polishers probably used for finishing the 
surface of vases (Fig. 27, a, b, c, d). 

6. Large red and black mottled schnabelkanne, 36 cm. high. 

7. Three side-spouted "flower-pots" found with the schnab- 
elkanne just outside the mouth of the cave. 

Two small green soapstone vases were also found in this 
deposit, a bowl 2.5 cm. high and a little dish barely 2 cm. high 
with three handles and a spout. A bowl of black steatite of a 
type associated with a later period of stone-cutting was also 



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EDITH H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EA8TBBN CRETE. 



55 



found in this deposit, having in all probability worked its way 
down from a higher level. 

All along the margins of these Early Minoan deposits and 
indeed sometimes quite within their limits occurred traces of 
Middle Minoan III and Late Minoan I burials in inverted jars. 




G H 

Fig 28. — Middle Minoan I Vases. Scale 1:5. 

Where such later interments were numerous the earlier deposits 
ceased to appear. It seems accordingly possible that the entire 
slope had been used as a burial place in Early Minoan times and 
that many of these earlier graves had been removed by later 
inhabitants to make room for their own dead. It is also possible 
that the earlier graves had been plundered by later generations 
and that fine goldwork like the pendant of Fig. 24 had thus 
disappeared. And if we are to suppose a rich and extensive 
cemetery on the hillside of Sphoungaras we must also suppose an 
extensive settlement in the town of Gournia. This is indeed the 
most important conclusion to be drawn from these early burials, 
viz. that the town of Gournia was a large and prosperous com- 
munity in the Early Minoan II period. 



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56 ANTHROPOLOaiCAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEX7M, VOL. HI. 

A GROUP OF MIDDLE MINOAN I VASES 

Before describing the later pithos-burials, mention should 
be made of a group of Middle Minoan I vases which could not be 
assigned either to these later burials in jars or to the older 
Early Minoan interments. They lay for the most part along the 
northern confines of the early deposit A in an area marked F on 
plan, where the two types of burial — the earlier in graves and the 
later in jars — ^were mixed. Some specimens in the following 
list lay close to Early Minoan vases; other were adjacent to 
pithos-burials. Now we shall soon see that a few of the earliest 
burials in jars are to be assigned to the Middle Minoan I period. 
It is thus possible that these Middle Minoan I cups and jugs 
were buried along with the pithoi containing the dead. But it 
is equally possible that these vases had been interred in graves, 
for pottery of the Middle Minoan I period was found in cist 
graves on Pseira, adjacent to burials in jars. 

These Middle Minoan I vases are as follows: 

1. Two-handled side-spouted cup of hand-polished buff 
clay (Fig. 28, d). The similarity of this ware to the buff hand- 
polished ware of the Early Minoan II period has been pointed 
out by Mr. Seager.^ Only by the shape may these undecorated 
wares of the two periods be distinguished. This vase was found 
close to the red and black jug of Fig. 21 and also to the Middle 
Minoan I jar of Fig. 31. 

2. Squat vase with two small side-handles and large side- 
spout (Fig. 28,/). Traces of circles of red paint are visible on 
the shoulder, and lines of the same on the neck. For this 
reason the vase is assigned to the Middle Minoan I period; on 
other grounds it might well be called Early Minoan II. This 
vase was from a mixed deposit containing both red and black 
egg-cups and Middle Minoan I cups and jugs. 

3. Painted bowl with central ornament in the form of a 
flower. (Fig. 29.) The body-paint varies from brown to black. 

* See Explorations in the Island of Mochlos, p. 8. 



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EDITH H. HALL — ^EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CBETE. 



57 



On this background are painted both inside and out red and 
white festoons interspersed with white quirks. The petals of the 
flower are painted white with red dividing lines. This vase 
was found together with red and black egg-cups as well as 
fragments of other Middle Minoan I cups. Comparable cups with 
modelled ornaments inside were found at Palaikastro; in B. S.A.^ 
IX, 1902-1903, p. 302, Fig. I, 5a, a specimen is shown where the 
central ornament is a dog. In other cups the central ornaments 
were birds, but no flowers were noted. 




Fig. 29. — Middle Minoan 1 Bowl. Scale 2:3. 

4. Tall Straight sided cup, in shape like Middle Minoan II 
and Late Minoan I cups. Its painted surface varies from 
brown to black, a possible reminiscence of the mottled red and 
black Early Minoan II style (Fig. 28, g). Similar cups were 
found at Vasiliki in Middle Minoan I context. 

5. Three round-bodied cups of buff clay with lines of dark 
paint on rim and handle (Fig. 28, a, h and e). 

6. More advanced shape, entirely covered with black paint 
(Fig. 28, c). 

7. Rim-handled bowl of buff clay (Fig. 28, A). 

In addition to these cups and bowls, a quantity of Middle 
Minoan I jugs came to light (Figs. 30 and 31). They came 
from a comparatively small area adjacent to the area of pithos- 
burials. In the one case where stratification was observable, 
they lay above the Early Minoan III cups of Fig. 23. They need 



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58 



ANTHBOPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. HI. 



no special comment except perhaps b and g, which are miniature 
examples of a type of painted jug very typical of this period. 
Both these painted patterns, the "plume'* decoration and the 
circular patches of dark paint connected by slanting lines were 
thought by Mrs. Hawes to be characteristic of Middle Minoan 




n o 

Fig. 30. — Middle Minoan I Jugs. Scale 1:4. 

Ill ceramic art.^ Subsequent excavations at Vasiliki revealed 

some specimens with this decoration in Middle Minoan I 

deposits^ and later discoveries on Pseira^ definitely established 

the fact that vases with these two types of decoration belonged 

not to the Middle Minoan III but to the Middle Minoan I 

period. 

THE PITHOS-BURIALS 

A glance at the plan will show over how wide an area the 
pithos-burials extended. The circles indicate, however, only 

1 Sec Gournta, pp. 38 and 60, and Pis. D and VI, 29 and 42. 

« Sec Transactions, Vol. II, Part II, p. 128. 

• See Psfira, Anthropological Publications of the Univ. of Pfnna., Ill, No. X, p. 19. 



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EDITH H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CBETE. 59 

those pithoi which were either whole or could be restored. 
Inasmuch as the entire hill was strewn with fragments of heavy 
jars, we must conclude that the original number was far greater. 
Some thirty of the hundred and fifty found, those which had 
painted decoration and the unpainted ones whrch were in good 
condition, were taken to the excavation house; the rest were 
buried again in the trial trenches. 

Without exception the burial-jars were placed upside down 
(Plates XI and XII). They were inserted neither at regular in- 
tervals nor at a uniform depth. They must have been entirely 
covered by earth, for sometimes a large flat stone had been laid 
above them as if for additional protection and such stones would 
never have stayed in place had they not been held in position by 
earth. The soil between and below the jars was generally filled with 




Fig. 31. — Middle Minoan I Jar. Scale 2:3. 

beach pebbles and where the pithoi stood close together, larger 
stones appeared, which had served as wedges to keep them in place. 
Sometimes covers were found underneath the jars but this was 
not the rule, it evidently being held preferable that the mouth 
of the jar should be left open. A cleaner method of burial could 
scarcely be devised; the body came into contact only with the 
clay of the inclosing jar or with the beach pebbles below it and 



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60 ANTHBOPOLOQICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. HI. 

as the centuries passed the pithos, if it remained unbroken, 
kept out the infiltering earth much more effectually than a 
grave lined with slabs would have done. In fact, inside the un- 
broken pithoi only a handful of earth appeared — doubtless the 
dust to which the body had crumbled. 

In one instance (see G on plan, PI. XV) a pithos was found 
within another pithos. 

There should also be recorded the fact that among the pithoi 
was found a lamax (H on plan). It measured 87 X 44 centi- 
metres and was 54 centimetres high. It was without ornament, 
but its date must be the same as that of the Middle Minoan III 
or Later Minoan I pithoi in the midst of which it was interred. 




Fig. 32. — Middle Minoan I Burial-jar. Scale i : 8. 

The size and shape of the pithoi differed widely. Small jars 
were used for children, larger ones for adults. In some cases the 
jars were of familiar domestic types; in fact it looked as if worn jars 
had been taken from the household stock and used for burials, 
for in several cases the rims were broken and the missing pieces 
were not to be found in the vicinity. Often, however, they were 
of a type which seems to have been made particularly for burials. 
Such jars as those in Fig. 35 with their small bases and awkwardly 
bulging sides would have been both unstable and ugly as articles 



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BDITH H. BALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EABTBBN CBETE. 61 

of household furniture, whereas they were admirably adapted 
for burials. 

It was at first thought that these jar-interments were 
perhaps secondary burials, that the bones had been inserted in 
the jars after they had been cleared of flesh. But this was not 
the case. Several jars had become cracked around their bases 
(i. e. their tops in the position in which they were found) and 
thus by lifting off the upper part we could note the position of 
the bones before they had been disturbed by the removal of the 
iar. In^several instances the bones of all five fingers were ob- 




FiG. 33. — Middle Minoan III Burial-jar. Scale 1:7. 

served exactly in their correct order, and again the rib-bones 
appeared in their proper position. In two cases the leg-bones 
were still upright as they had been originally when the body 
was inserted with the legs doubled up and the knees brought close 
to the chin (PI. XIV). To prove beyond doubt that primary 
burials were possible in these jars, we tried putting a pithos with 
a broken base over the head of one of our workmen after we had 
seated him in the position indicated by the bones, and found 



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62 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OP PA. MUSEUM, VOL. HI. 



that the space was ample. It seems probable that the corpses 
were trussed in this sitting posture before insertion in the jars, 
unless, indeed, we are to believe that the Cretans, like the 
Libyan tribe of which Herodotus writes,^ did not wait for the 
actual arrival of death but as their sick were expiring, forced them 
into a sitting position. 

The height of the jars varied from 32 to 94 centimetres. 
By far the greater part were undecorated, and of .those which 




Fig. 34. — Middle Minoan Burial-jar. Scale i : 6. 

were ornamented with painted designs, many could boast of 
nothing more than the drip pattern, a kind of decoration secured 
by pouring paint over the jar and letting it trickle down its 

* Herodotus IV, 190. 



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EDITH H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE. 



63 



Sides. This type of decoration begins in the Early Minoan II 
period but is also frequent in the Middle Minoan III and Late 
Minoan I periods. 

There were however enough jars which were ornamented 
with well known patterns to fix with a fair degree of certainty 




Fig. 35. — Middle Minoan III Burial-jar. Scale 1:6. 

the date of these pithoi-burials. The earliest specimens, 
decorated with curving lines and circular patches of dark paint, 
date from the Middle Minoan I period. Many fragments of 
such jars came to light. One small specimen was undamaged 
(Fig. 32) and a large one, though broken, could be put together, 
which was of importance for establishing the fact that adults as 
well as children were buried in jars in the Middle Minoan I 
period. , 



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64 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OP PA. BiUSBUM, VOL. IH. 

Four pithoi were painted in the style typical of the Middle 
Minoan III period, i. e., with designs in powdery white upon 
a purplish ground. The first (Fig. 33) is a sturdy vessel of 
unusual type. Its painted ornament is confined to three bands 
of white about the middle of the vase and four ornaments on the 
shoulder between the four handles. These ornaments consist 
of spirals, of leaf-like curls adjoining them, and of barred lobes 
between the spirals and the curls. This central ornament closely 
resembles the barred lobes on a jar from Zakro^ and the design 
as a whole resembles that in superadded white on a beautiful 
jar from Pseira.^ 

Such similarities between the ornaments of the Middle 
Minoan III and the Late Minoan I periods indicate that no 
great time elapsed between the two. Indeed there is good 
evidence to suppose that the light on dark technique assigned 
to the Middle Minoan III period is synchronous with the earlier 
of the fabrics generally assigned to Late Minoan I potters.* A 
further observation suggested by this painted ornament is that 
the tendency here evinced by the potter to fill the space between 
two spreading curves with a flower or bud is one of the most 
characteristic tendencies not only of later Minoan art,* but also 
of Ionian vase-painting. Messrs. J. H. Hopkinson and John ff. 
Baker-Penroyne have pointed out the resemblance between 
such flower and spiral combinations on vases from Phylakopi 
and on later '^Melian" amphorae.* The same similarity exists 
between M ddle Minoan III designs and those on "Melian" 
amphorae, Klazomenai sarcophagi and "Fikellura" ware. 

The other Middle Minoan III pithoi are alike n shape 
except that the foot of one is more slender. They all have 
grooves below the rim which would have he d a rope in place, 

»y. H. S., 1903, Vol. 23, p. 253. Fig. 18. 

• University of Pennsylvania^ The Museum^ Anthropological Publications, Vol. Ill, No. i, 
Excavations on the Island of Pseira, PI. V II. 

» Cf. R. M. Dawkins in B, S. A. 

* Cf. the Late Minoan III designs in Figs. 64-66 in Hall, Decorative Art of CreU in the Bronu 
Age, p. 43. 

» See y. H, S., XXII (1902), p. eS. 



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EDITH H. HALL — ^EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CBETB. 



65 



had occasion arisen of lifting these jars with ropes, and most of 
them have also projecting rims around the base by which they 
could be gripped. The decoration of two of these jars is shown 
in Figs. 34 and 35. Among the decorative motives of the fourth 
jar, which is not shown, is the foliate pattern which occurs on the 




Fig. 36. — Unpainted Burial-jars of Typical Shapes. Scale i: 14. 

shoulder of the jar in Fig. ii, p. 30, of the preceding report on 
Pseira. It is a pattern particularly characteristic of the later- 
"Palace Style." 

It seems strange that jars with such perishable decoration 
in fugitive white should have been used for insertion in the 
ground. Yet we can imagine that these delicate patterns would 
have shown up well in a funeral procession and that the beauty 
of the vase would have been a source of pride to a prosperous 
citizen of Gournia. 

The Late Minoan I pithoi which bore painted decorations 
were two in number. The one with a slender base may be 
compared to the jars in Gournia^ PI. K, and to preceding report 
on Pseira, p. 33, Fig. 14. The decoration of this jar consists 



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66 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OP PA. MUSEUM, VOL. ni. 



of zone above zone of spirals or wheels interspersed with small 
rosettes, all painted in the manner typical of the Late Minoan I 
period (Fig. 37). The decoration of the other jar is a kind 




Fig. 37. — Late Minoan I Burial-jar. Scale i: 12. 

frequently found on the pottery from Gournia^ and consists of 
small circles of dark paint upon a dotted background. 

It cannot be said that the men who were buried in these 
pithoi were richly equipped for their journey to the realms of 
the dead. It was hoped that the jars might yield many small 

ornaments comparable in number and 
beauty to the small objects which were 
buried with earlier generations at Moch- 
los, and in this hope every bit of earth 
from the pithoi was carefully examined, 
but it was only occasionally that the 
search was rewarded. From the total 
number of 150 pithoi found only 15 
proved to contain anything else beside 
Almost no pottery, e. g., 
was found, the only exception of note 
being the vase of Fig. 38. It was quite usual to find deposits of 

»Cf. Goumia, PI. VII, 40. 




Fig 38.-Vase Found Inside ^^^ skeleton. 
Burial-jar. Scale 1:3. 



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EDITH H. HALL — ^EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CBETE. 67 

pottery adjacent to the pithoi but since the favorite offerings to 
the dead had been fragile cups, there was nothing left but hope- 
lessly broken fragments. As many as ten baskets of small cup- 
fragments were recovered. They were mostly of two types, 
shown in Gournia, PI. VI, 5 and 36, and were decorated with spirals 
or fern patterns painted in white or more rarely in red on a 
ground-paint which was sometimes reddish, and sometimes 
brown or black. These cups, as said above, are equally charac- 
teristic of the Middle Minoan III and of the Late Minoan I 
period. The only other piece of pottery to be recorded was a 
lid painted with marguerites (Fig. 39). It was found underneath 
one of the burial jars. 

Beads were the objects which most frequently occurred 




Fig. 39. — Lid Found Beneath Burial-jar. Scale i : 3. 

within the pithoi. They were often of clay and of the simplest 
types. Occasionally they were of bronze, steatite (see Fig. 40, a), 
or of blue porcelain. In one case they were found adhering to 
the skull. 

Bronze objects were not uncommon. The largest was an 
axe-head in the socket-hole of which a piece of wood still re- 



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68 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OP PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



mained (Fig. 41). It must have been a votive or symbolical 
axe for both the axe-head itself and the wooden handle are too 
slender for practical use. Perhaps it had prophylactic value; 
we know that single axe-heads shared the sacred character of the 
more common type of double axe. The bronze hairpin of Fig. 
42 was found in the same pithos as the carnelian seal of Fig. 45, d. 



/ 







Fig. 40. — Clay Seals and Steatite 
Beads. Scale 2:3. 



Fig. 41. — Bronze Axe-head Found Inside 
Burial-jar. Scale i : 2. 



That bronze was highly enough prized to be used for jewelry is 
shown not only by bronze beads but also by three bronze rings. 
Two of these have plain bronze bezels (Fig. 43, a)\ like the 
Early Minoan gold ring they are of very small dimensions (diam. 
I cm.) so that they must have been worn either on the little 
finger of a child's hand or on the last joint of an adult's little 



Fig. 42. — Bronze Pin Found Inside Burial-jar. Scale 1:2. 

finger; or perhaps they were suspended from a necklace. The 
third bronze ring (Fig. 43, b) had a crystal bezel, which had 
fallen from its setting and had worked its way several centimetres 
through the soil. The decoration is very simple and con^sts of 



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EDITH H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CBETE. 69 

a barred triangle and lines. This ring furnishes the only 
instance, so far as I know, of a sealstone set in a ring. In the 
same jar with the bronze ring appeared a heavy lead ring, the 
bezel of which is decorated with the figure of a woman (Fig. 44). 

The most interesting objects found in the pithoi were 
sealstones, not because they presented new or rare types, but 
because, being found in jars that were known to be of the Middle 
Minoan III or of the Late Minoan I period, their date could be 
fixed with a fair degree of certainty. Had they not be6n in this 
earlier context they would have been probably 
assigned, on the ground of their conventional ^T^^ 

types, to the Late Minoan II or to the Late Min- ^ 

oan III period. It now appears, however, that 
some of the hackneyed types like that of the 
squid were already in use, were, indeed, conven- 
tionalized, and carelessly rendered as early as 
the Middle Minoan III or at any rate the Late 
Minoan I period. ^ 

These sealstones are as follows : ^^^- 43.— Bronze 

a. Small red camelian seal with the repre- .^"^^ i[°" ^"^*- 

1 1 r 1 r J^"- Scale 2:3. 

sentation of a door or perhaps the facade of a 
temple on either side of which is a tree. This seal maybe 
compared with the seal in 'E<^. 'Ap^-j 1907, mp. 7, No. 47a 
(Fig. 45, g). 

b. Large red carnelian seal with design of vase and plants 
Compare loc. cit.j ttiv. 7, No. 47, )8 and y (Fig. 45,/). 

c. Rock crystal lentoid seal with geometric de- 
sign. (Fig. 45, A). 

d. Amethyst amydgaloid seal with squid orna- 
FiG. 44.— Lead ^^^^^ (Fig. 45, c). For similar representations of a 

Ring Found In- squid Compare loc. cit., inv. 7, Nos. 51 and 81. 
side Burial-jar. ^, Red Carnelian lentoid seal with design in 

the form of a conventionalized vase (Fig. 45, d). 
/. Red carnelian amygdaloid seal with squid ornament more 
conventionalized than in d (Fig. 45, e). 




^ 



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70 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. TJNIV. OP PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



g. Small amethyst seal in shape of a flattened cylinder with 
heart-shaped design, and on the reverse pictographic (?) signs 
(Fig. 45, a). 

h. Small amethyst lentoid seal with a fish, sea-urchin, and 
other marine devices (Fig. 45, h). Cf. loc. cit., tnv. 7, No. 94 
(Fig. 29, a). 

There were also found two clay seals; the one lay adjacent 
to a pithos burial, the other (Fig. 40, c), like the Middle Minoan 
I pottery on the confines of the Early Minoan I deposit A, in a 
region where the Early Minoan interments and the later pithos 
burials were confused. Its date therefore is not fixed, but the 
graceful design of a whorl of fishes certainly seems older than 
the Late Minoan period. 

These sealstones, then, do not help to date their context 
but on the contrary they all, with the exception of the clay seal 




C f O M 

Fig. 45. — Sealstones Found Inside Burial-jars. Scale i: i. 

last mentioned, may be said to be dated by it. The other 
objects, however, found within the jars and the pottery adjacent 
to them confirm the evidence which was derived from the patterns 
on the pithoi themselves and which went to show that these 
burials belong to the Middle Minoan I, the Middle Minoan III, 
and the Late Minoan I periods. 

Sporadic instances of squat burials in jars have occurred 
before in Crete. At Knossos a child burial was found in an 
inverted Middle Minoan III jar and at Pseira child burials were 



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EDITH H. HALL — ^EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE. 71 

found in both Middle Minoan I and Middle Minoan III jars. 
At Vrokastro also, were found this year two child burials in jars 
— not inverted — adjacent to house walls. Such sporadic cases 
are of great value in helping to modify the discrepancy between 
the jar burials of the Sphoungaras cemetery and the widely 
divergent methods of other Cretan cemeteries, for they indicate 
that in more than one place and at more than one time was it 
the custom to bury children in jars. A possible hypothesis is 
that in no period of Cretan culture was *it foreign to Minoan 
custom to bury the children in jars, but that in the three periods 
specified the practice was extended to adults as well as to chil- 
dren. Another possible hypothesis is that the poor only buried 
the dead in jars. This is the custom in some districts of China 
today; the poorer people for the purpose of economizing space, 
squeeze the bodies of their dead into jars. The citizens of 
Gournia, however, seem too prosperous to warrant such an 
explanation. In spite of the fact that a certain amount of con- 
servatism would be expected in regard to burying the dead, the 
truth seems to be that the Cretans of the Bronze Age experi- 
mented a good deal in this matter. The following table (p. 73) 
shows the different kind of burials found up to date in Crete; in 
some cases the cemeteries are on steep hillsides like Sphoungaras 
where tunnels were driven almost horizontally into the hill, in 
other cases, like the long narrow burial rooms of Palaikastro 
they are on nearly level ground. 

The occasional appearance of this crude method of burial 
side by side with other more civilized practices is not an isolated 
phenomenon. In Egypt the custom of " interment under pots 
appears in upper Egypt at the close of the predynastic period 
and is uniformly continuous through the early dynasties to the 
advent of the Fourth. It is associated with other early modes of 
burial. As a practice it is not common but constant; nor is it 
demonstrably representative of poorer or richer people or of a 
differing element of race."^ 

^Gareung, Tombs of the Third Egyptian Dynasty at Reqaqnah and Bet Khalldf, 1904, 
pp. 50-57. 



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72 ANTHBOPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. IH. 

A similar phenomenon moreover existed in all probability 
in Greek lands. At five sites — Thorikos, Aphidna, Aigina, 
Tiryns, and Arkesine on Amorgos — ^jar burials have been found 
which in the opinion of their excavators date from the "premy- 
cenaean" period.^ 

In the absence of full publications of the pottery found with 
these burials, their date remains somewhat uncertain but it 
seems probable that during the early bronze age, jars instead of 
graves were occasionally used for burying the dead, at more than 
one place on the Greek mainland. 

All these graves were thought by M. Stais and by Diimmler^ 
to be the graves of a people who were quite distinct, racially, from 
the later Mycenaeans; they were called variously Carians, 
Lycians and Pelasgians. M. Tsountas alone maintained the 
opinion that a difference in burial did not necessarily imply a 
difference in race. In its bearing on this question, the evidence 
from Sphoungaras is apparently decisive, for it shows that the 
highly developed Minoan civilization as well as the older and 
more primitive societies of the mainland sometimes buried their 
dead in jars. This cemetery, moreover, serves to connect such 
earlier sporadic instances of burials under jars with the later 
practices of the geometric period. 

I For this list of pithos-buriaU I am indebted to Zehetmaier, Leichenoerbrennung und LeicJun" 
verstaltung im aktn Hellas^ p. 43. For the few particulars which are given about these burials 
see for those at Thorikos: 'E^. 'Apx*, 1895, p. 228 f; for those at Aigina where no pithoi were re- 
covered but only the circular pits in which they had stood, id., p. 248; for those at Aphidna, 
jitfun. Mitt., 1896, p. 385 ff; for those at Tiryns and Arkesine on Amorgos, 'E^. Apx-, 1898, p. 210. 

* Cf. also Perrot and Chipiez, Histoire de Part, II, p. 373. 



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BDITH H. HAUi — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE. 



73 



EariyP 


No graves found. 






Minoan I. 










Rock shelters, 


Zakro, 


B. S, A,, VII, p. 143. 






Hagios Nikolaos, 


B, S. A,, IX, D. 340. 
Gournia, p. 56. 






Hagia Photia, 






Sphoungaras. 
Mochlos, 


Ibid, 




Cist graves, 


Sphoungaras, 


On evidence of loote 


Early 
Minoan II 




Pseira, 


stones. 
Unpublished. 


XtX IUV/ AU Jl a • 




Mochlos, 


Explorations in the Island 




Recungular chamber 


Mochlos, 


of Mochlos, p. 13. 




tombs (roofed). 








Circular chamber tombs 


The Messara Hagia Tri- 


Mem. R. Ist. Lomb., XXI, 




(unroofed?), 


ada. 


1905. 






Koumasa, 


Unpublished. 




Lamakes, 


Sphoungaras, 


On evidence of fragments. 


Early 
Minoan III. 


All the types of graves found in the Early Minoan II period occur here also. 




Rock shelters, 


Hagia Photia, 


Gournia, p. j6. 
Unpublished, 




Cist graves (reused). 


Pseira, 




Narrow burial chambers, 


Palaikastro, 


5. S.^., VIII, p. 291. 






Gournia, 


Ooumia, p. 56. 

Trans., Vol. II, Part II, 






VasUiki,! 


Middle 






p. 115. 
Unpublished. 


Minoan I. 


Circular chamber tomts 


The Messara, 




(unroofed?). 








Lamakes, 


Sphoungaras, 


On the evidence of frag* 
ments. 




Burial jars, 


Pseira, 
Sphoungaras, 


Unpublished. 


Middle 


No graves found. 






Minoan II. 


1 








Cist graves (reused). 


Pseira, 


Unpublished. 


Middle 


Burial jars, 


Sphoungaras. 
Mochlos, 




Minoan III. 




Explorations in the Island 








of Mochlos, p. 14. 


Late 


Burial jars. 


Sphoungaras. 
Mochlos, 




Minoan I. 




Unpublished. 




Rectangular chamber 


Isopata, 


Prehistoric Tombs of 


Late 


tombs of squared 
blocks, anci roofed, 




Knossos, pp. 136 and 


Minoan II. 




1-21. 




Pit graves, 1 
Shaft graves, l' 


Zafer Papoura, 


Id., pp. 1-21. 
Id., pp. 1-2 1. 




Lamakes, 


(joumia, 


Gournia, pp. 4J and 46. 
Transactions, II, Part II, 




Beehive tombs. 


Hagios Theodoroe, 








1907, p. 131. 






Anoia Messaritica and 


Mon. Ant., 1889, p. 201. 






Milatos, 




Late 
Minoan III. 




Palaiokastro, 


B. S. A,, VIII, p. 303. 




Episkopi, 


Unpublished. 




Ei^anos, Panagia and 
Courtes, 


A. J. A,, 1901, Vol. XI, p. 






259 if. 




Pit craves. 
Shaft graves. 


Zafer Papoura, 


Loc, cii,, pp. 1-2 1. 










Rectangular chamber- 








tombs. 







' Here the burial chambers contained lamakes. 



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UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 

THE MUSEUM 

ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS 

Vol. Ill No. 3 



EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE 
VROKASTRO 



BY 
E. H. HALL 



PHILADELPHIA 

PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM 

1914 



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CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

INTRODUCTION 79 

THE HOUSES: 

Architecture 86 

Stratification 89 

Objects Found 99 

THE TOMBS: 

Chamber-Tombs 123 

Bone-Enclosures 155 

PlTHOS-BURIALS 1 73 

Rock-Shelter Interment 175 

CONCLUSION 176 



(77) 



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EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, 
VROKASTRO. 



INTRODUCTION. 

During the last decade and a half, the excavations which 
have been carried on in the island of Crete have been confined 
almost entirely to sites dating from the bronze age. The splendid 
results of these excavations are now so well known as to need 
no recapitulation. Successive stages have been traced in the 
history of a brilliant civilization which had its rise in a remote era 
of the third millennium and maintained itself until the closing 
centuries of the second millennium B. C. It is only natural that 
while the attention of the archaeological world has been focused 
on these Minoan discoveries the more primitive culture of the 
succeeding age of iron should have received less than its due share 
of honor. Pottery ornamented with geometric patterns, the 
characteristic product of the iron age, has been found in abun- 
dance in Cretan soil, but of the vases decorated in this geometric 
style which have been brought into the Candia Museum, many, 
found by peasants, have not been published at all; others, 
unearthed by archaeologists, have been but scantily described 
and inadequately reproduced.^ 

* The principal publications dealing with geometric remains of Crete are: Orsi, /^. J. A., 
1897, pp. 251-265; Boyd, A. J. A., 1901, pp. 125-157; Halbherr and Mariani, id., pp. 259-314; 
Hogarth, B. S. A. VI, pp. 82-85; Bosanquet, id. VIII, pp. 231-251; Droop, id. XII, pp. 24-62; 
Mackenzie, id. XIII, pp. 428-445; Mariani, Mon. Ant. VI, pp. 342-348 and PI. XII, 
58-62; Halbherr, id. XII, pp. 114-118; Wide, Jahrhucb, 1899, pp. 35-43; Athen. Mitt. 
XX 11, pp. 233-258. 

(79) 



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80 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

There have not been wanting, however, scholars who have 
realized the importance of this period; Dr. Duncan Mackenzie 
in his masterly analysis of the pottery of the early iron age^ 
has indicated the probable place of the Achaean invasion in the 
series of inroads by northerners into the island. Certainly 
it is by a detailed study of the remains of this epoch that the 
relations of the Minoan culture to that of classical Greece may 
best be determined. The more exact our knowledge of this 
period, the clearer our conception of the extent and date of 
invasions intermediate between the fall of Minoan power and 
the dawn of classical Greece. 

It was in the hope of throwing light on such problems of 
ethnology and chronology that excavations were undertaken for 
the University Museum at a lofty site called Vrokastro. This 
hill had been visited by Mrs. C. H. Hawes and Mr. R. B. Seager 
in 1903 and, on the evidence of numerous walls and of sherds 
picked up on the surface, had been regarded as a promising place 
for geometric remains. Two campaigns were devoted to this 
site; the earlier in 1910 lasted but three weeks, the second 
was carried on during May and June, 191 2. The number of 
men employed ranged from twenty-five to sixty, according to 
whether houses or tombs were being dug, a smaller number 
being required for tombs. The men who worked with picks' 
and knives were mostly veterans trained at previous excavations ; 
the rest of the force was enrolled at the neighboring village of 
Kalo Khorio (KaXo Xoipto). The work was under the super- 
vision of the writer; she was, however, greatly aided by the 
advice of Mr. Seager, who paid frequent visits to the excavations. 
To Mr. Seager's courtesy the expedition was also indebted for 
the loan of excavation tents, for the use of his house at Pacheia 

* Loc. cit. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 8 1 

Ammos as headquarters, and for help in the difficult matter of 
procuring supplies. It is a pleasure also to acknowledge the 
kindness of Mr. Hagidakis and Mr. Xanthoudides, who, as 
heretofore, did all in their power to aid the Museum's work in 
Crete. 

Vrokastro^ (BpoKaarpo), a shortened form of 'Efipauor 
KaoTpo, is the name given to a steep limestone spur which rises 
to a height of nearly a thousand feet on the east side of the green 
and picturesque valley of Kalo Khorio. Its north and west 
faces are scarcely accessible, but on the east there is a winding 
path used by goatherds and by those who cultivate the small 
terraces built here and there against the mountain-side. The 
south face is connected by a saddle with the hills behind. With 
the exception of a few of the steepest crags, this entire mountain, 
from the summit to the sea, is strewn with potsherds. House- 
walls and retaining walls may also be traced among the bushes, 
and enough of these have been examined to show that they belong 
to the geometric period. The appearance of Vrokastro at the 
height of its power must have been similar to that of an Italian 
hilltown of to-day. 

That so steep and barren a mountain should have been 
chosen as a place of human abode invites speculation. Two 
reasons present themselves. To a people living in fear of sud- 
den invasion by sea, Vrokastro presented marked advantages. 
The north face of the mountain is broken by crags and pointed 
pinnacles of rock which would have served admirably as lookouts. 

* This is a common place-name in Greek lands, cf. Pernot, Melodies populaires grecques de 
Visle de Cbio, song 48, p. 63 : 

oXa ra Kaarpa cTr^ya, Koarrp* iyvpLtra 

(rav T^s 'Efipiaq to Koa-Tpo, KoxTrpo 8cv clSa. 



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82 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

Watchmen stationed here could have discerned boats far out at 
sea and could have signaled their approach to men sowing or 
harvesting in the plains below in time to allow them to reach 
safely the high retreat on the summit before the hostile boats 
were beached. Moreover, Vrokastro was but a part of the 
iron age settlement. On the hills to the south, especially on 
Karakovilia {KapaKofiiXia), which lies immediately behind and 
which is joined to Vrokastro by a saddle, were found both houses 
and tombs. A circuit of five kilometers indeed would scarcely 
include the district where traces of geometric remains abound. 
For this entire area as well as for the valley of Kalo Khorio, 
Vrokastro would have served as a lookout and citadel. Again, 
we may suppose that at some stage at least in the history of 
the site the valley had been seized by invaders who had 
reduced their predecessors to the position of perioikoi and 
driven them to the less promising districts like Vrokastro and 
the hills behind it. 

The sketch map of PI. XVI I shows the relation of Vrokastro 
to the neighboring localities where excavations were carried on. 
With the exception of Kalo Khorio there is no village at any of 
these places; the names are given by Cretan custom to the 
land itself, each ridge, valley, or mountain-peak having its 
own special name. Karakovilia, Mazi Khortia (Majux^/arta), 
and Amigthali (^AjuivySaXt) are three rough, upland moors as 
wild and rocky as Vrokastro but with less precipitous faces. 
Kopranes (KoTrpai/c?) is a foot-hill of Vrokastro and is only 
a little higher than the Kalo Khorio valley. 

The short campaign of 1910 was devoted to the summit 
of Vrokastro in the hope that some trace of a shrine might 
there be brought to light. Nothing, however, save the tangle 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 83 

of house-walls shown in PI. XVIII appeared. The depth of 
deposit, which was sometimes as much as three meters, seemed 
remarkable for so bare and rugged a mountain. The object 
of the season's work in 191 2 was first to clear more houses and 
ascertain the date of the walls along the northern face of the 
mountain, and secondly to find the tombs belonging to this 
settlement. The men were accordingly set to work at the 
opening of the season to clear a stretch of hillside on the north 
face of the mountain, some 100 meters below the summit. 
The main force of workmen was occupied here for a month, 
though now and again men were detailed either to sink trenches 
adjacent to house-walls further down the slope or to try places 
which promised well for tombs. 

The very first day, in fact, a workman was sent to Karako- 
vilia to a spot which had attracted my attention in 19 10, but 
which could not then be conveniently tested, inasmuch as it 
lay beneath a guy rope of a tent. The place was marked by 
a pile of tumbled stones, and proved upon investigation to be 
the site of a rectangular chamber-tomb. It is somewhat doubt- 
ful whether the pile of stones which appeared on the surface 
was really a part of the fallen roof of the tomb; it may have 
been merely a chance occurrence. The best clue, as we later 
learned, for locating such tombs was the white, chalky soil 
called "kouskoura," from which they were cut. Most of them, 
moreover, were built under the shelter of a ledge or projecting 
spur of rock so that they might be protected against the 
disasters of washouts. 

It was hoped that with the discovery of this large chamber- 
tomb, the cemetery of Vrokastro had been located and that the 
finding of other tombs would be an easy task. But such was 
not the case. Trial trenches sunk in the neighborhood of this 



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84 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

tomb revealed nothing but house-walls, and subsequent experi- 
ence pointed also to the conclusion, that tombs had been inter- 
spersed among houses. Later in the season the workmen of 
the third class were sent away and the rest of the force began 
a systematic search for burials. As a result two more chamber- 
tombs and six bone-enclosures were found at Mazikhortia; 
another chamber-tomb, a cave burial, and a pithos interment 
were found at Amigthali; and both chamber-tombs and bone- 
enclosures were found further down the mountain at Kopranes. 
And everywhere, both adjacent to these tombs and in places 
where search for tombs was unsuccessful, house-walls of the 
geometric period constantly came to light. These were no 
more than tested except on Vrokastro in the spots already 
mentioned. 

In several places Minoan remains were located, and first 
on Vrokastro itself, where the Minoan vases described below 
were found at a low level. North of the Kopranes graves, a 
Minoan house was dug which yielded Late Minoan 1 potsherds 
and a good sealstone. At Kato Arniko (Karcu 'XppiKo) an 
Early Minoan cave was cleared, and lastly, at a little promon- 
tory called Priniatiko Pirgo {UpLPtdTLKo Uvpyo), an extensive 
Minoan settlement was discovered which yielded during the 
week that excavations were carried on there, beautiful speci- 
mens of the Vasiliki mottled style, of rippled bowls, and of 
other Late Minoan I products, (Fig. 46). The pottery was 
splendidly preserved. The only disadvantage of this site as a 
place for future excavations is that the upper deposit dates from 
the Roman period, and that Roman walls have in many places 
cut into the Minoan remains. This promontory of Priniatiko 
Pirgo was doubtless the shipping station for a large Minoan 
to^n which must be sought further up the Kalo Khorio Valley 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



85 



near and under the present village of Kalo Khorio. Excellent 
sherds of the Middle Minoan III and Late Minoan I periods 
were brought to us by peasants working the thick alluvial soil 
between the village and Kato Arniko. 







Fig. 46. Minoan Pottery from Priniatiko Pirgo ( 



Mention should also be made of an extensive Graeco- 
Roman site located on the peninsula called Nisi (T^rjai), Coins 
of Aluntium are frequently found in this vicinity and it may be 
that this settlement should be so identified. 



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86 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



THE HOUSES. 
Architecture. 

The houses uncovered on Vrokastro show a minimum of 
architectural skill. In both groups, that excavated in 191 o and 
that in 1912, there w^ere fev^ rooms w^hich w^ere either sufficiently 
regular in shape or large enough to constitute a dwelling-room 
that by modern civilized standards would be considered endur- 
able. The reason is not far to seek. To erect symmetrical 
and spacious houses on Vrokastro would have involved an 
elaborate series of terraces that would have imposed a vast 
expenditure of time and labor on the most skilled builders. 
And the people of the iron age were not under favorable cir- 
cumstances skilled builders. Some of the houses unearthed 
by Mrs. Hawes at Kavousi are, it is true, solidly and regularly 
constructed and the building found near the bone-enclosures 
on Karakovilia seems also to imply better methods, but in 
general it may be said that this people to an even greater extent 
than their predecessors of the bronze age were content to live 
in small and poorly constructed rooms. 

Of the group of houses excavated in 191 2, no plan was 
attempted. An amateur plan of that uncovered in 191 o is 
shown in PI. XVI 11. No elevation of the site was drawn, but 
the photograph of PI. XXII shows the chief variations in level. 
The letters on the photograph refer to those on the plan. 

The walls of Vrokastro are built of small stones with no 
other binding material than clay or mud daub. No bricks or 
squared stones appeared. Dressed stones, however, were 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 87 

found in the building on Karakovilia. In several rooms upright 
faces of native rock served as a wall. In such cases they were 
faced with rubble masonry which was remarkably well pre- 
served. This method of building can be paralleled in modern 
Cretan villages; in Kritsa the face of the steep rock against 
which the houses are built makes the fourth wall in more than 
one room. 

Only one road about which there can be no dispute was 
found. It is marked 2 on the plan, and probably led to the 
saddle connecting with the hills to the south. Beside it was 
a drain built of small stones like those beside roads in Pseira. 
It is possible that 24 and 26 were also originally roads and that 
the walls of small stones built across them are of later origin. 

There being thus no roads to divide the houses into blocks, 
it becomes quite impossible to distinguish separate houses. In 
all probability the houses were built, like those on Pseira, in 
successive terraces, the part of the house on any one terrace 
not exceeding two stories in height.^ One well-preserved 
staircase is shown in PI. XXIII, 3. 

Some of the walls do not enclose rooms at all, but merely 
shut off the rocks where these emerge above the surface. Rooms 
17 and 19, e, g., are both more regular in plan for the interven- 
ing rocks having been cut off by walls. This method was, of 
course, easier than to remove the outcropping rock. Where 
irregular surfaces of rock were lower than the floor to be built, 
a process of leveling up was employed. The soil used to fill up 
such holes and crevices was of a reddish color, easily distinguish- 
able from the brown soil of neighboring rooms. It contained 
a large admixture of sherds of the type characteristic of the 

^ R. B. Seager, University of Pennsylvania, The Museum, Anthropological Publications, 
Vol. Ill, No. I, Excavations on the Island of Pseira, Crete, p. 13. 



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88 • ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

very end of the bronze age, that to which the name Late Minoan 
III b has been given.^ The extremely uneven character of the 
rock as it appeared at the bottom of one room w^hen entirely 
cleared, is shown in PI. XXI 11, i. 

The floors of the houses were made of trodden earth. 
Column bases occurred in three rooms. In Room 34 a rec- 






wM 









:-=-*^-i- 



"^^^i,. 



Fig. 47. Sketch of Room 34, from Northeast, showing Rectangular Column 
Basis above Rectangular Stone. 

tangular column base was found, set upon another rectangular 
stone as foundation and for the purpose of raising the column 
base to the level of the native rock at the other end of the room. 
Fig. 47. The sherds found at the level of this lower stone were 
of the Late Minoan 1 1 1 period. The only object found above the 
floor was a large pithos of geometric date. 

* Cf . Dawkins, B. S. A. X, p. 196. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 89 

Stratification. 

The rubble walls of the Vrokastro houses were of little 
service in determining the periods in which the site was 
occupied. Occasionally it was possible to speak with certainty 
about the relative dates of juxtaposed walls, for a later wall 
was seen to be carried over an earlier. But usually there was 
no such criterion, nor were there any differences of construction 
observable, so that the determination of chronological periods 
was necessarily based on pottery. In connection with the 
subject of stratification, it will be convenient to describe the 
types of sherds yielded by the site. 

The general rule for the stratification of Vrokastro was to 
find geometric or quasi-geometric sherds in the upper stratum, 
below these Late Minoan III sherds with occasionally Middle 
Minoan fragments at a still lower level. Neither remnants of 
pavements nor signs of trodden earth floors were detected to 
distinguish these various strata. The level of a floor could 
be inferred only from the unusual amount of pottery or from 
the presence of unbroken specimens. Not a single floor-level 
of the Late Minoan III period was so indicated. In the upper- 
most stratum the level of a geometric floor could frequently be 
fixed, and, in the lowest stratum, that of a Middle Minoan 
floor. In rooms like 26 and 27, where Middle Minoan vases 
were found nearly intact, it must be supposed that their owners 
had left them in the corners of the rooms, that they had become 
covered with dust and debris in the interval which elapsed 
before the occupation of the site in the Late Minoan III period 
and that they then became further buried in artificial fillings 
inserted to level up the uneven surface of these rooms. The 
greater part of the Mycenaean pottery came from such fillings. 



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go ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

These early deposits had sometimes been disturbed. In three 
cases Late Minoan III sherds were seen to overlie sherds of 
the geometric period. Such confusion was doubtless mainly 
due to the character of the site; in rooms built on sharply slop- 
ing ground material packed beneath floors, when once it came 
to be exposed to rains, would be carried down the hill and lodged 
against the lower wall of the room. This was precisely what 
happened in Room 17. In view, moreover, of the long period 
during which this site was occupied, it is natural to suppose 
that in antiquity some of these deposits beneath floors had 
been overturned in the process of rebuilding and of leveling up 
anew the very uneven surface of the hill. 

Typical stratification was found in Room 27, where as 
usual the earth was stripped off a half meter at a time. In the 
first half meter was found geometric ware, principally bowls 
decorated with meanders, a few Late Minoan III sherds, the 
lamp of Fig. 57 d, and pieces of a small animal figure compar- 
able to those in Fig. 56; in the second half meter, the Late 
Minoan III fragments were more numerous and with them 
began to appear Middle Minoan ware, notably fragments 
of cups and of larger vessels decorated with circular patches 
of dark paint connected with slanting lines; in the lowest half 
meter were a few Middle Minoan vases and a single sherd of 
Late Minoan 111 ware. Certain fillings were found to contain 
only Late Minoan 111 sherds; in Room 17, where a late wall 
had cut off a rectangular space, the earth within this space was 
found to contain nothing but Late Minoan 111 fragments, 
indicating that the later north wall of this room had been built 
at a time when sherds of this period were at hand for filling 
material. Similarly, in a room dug in 191 2 which contained 
a pocket 2.50 deep, the red earth with which this hole had been 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



91 



filled contained Late Minoan ill sherds with a single piece 
dating from the Middle Minoan I period. 

The quantity of sherds yielded by the town-site was large, 
the harvest of a day's digging amounting oftentimes to thirty 
baskets. Over fifty per cent of these were unpainted, coming 
either from large pithoi or from smaller unpainted jars. The 
pithoi were decorated with a variety of stamped and moulded 
patterns shown in Fig. 4S. Of the painted fabrics at least ninety 
per cent were of the geometric style. The rest were Minoan. 

Sherds of typical Vrokastro fabrics are shown in Figs. 49-53. 




Fig. 48. Fragments of Pithoi with Stamped Ornaments from the Town (i : $), 

Middle Minoan sherds are not here included, but illustrations 
of restored pieces of this period are shown in Figs. 64 and 66 
and PI. XXV, 1. The most common type of Middle Minoan I 
sherd is that already referred to, from a dark on light fabric 
decorated with circular patches of paint connected with slanting 
lines.^ On Fig. 49 are shown typical sherds of a ware dating 
from the end of the bronze age. It will be seen at a glance 
that they are more Mycenaean than Minoan. Not once occurs 
the foliate pattern characteristic of the later stages of Knossian 

^University Museum, Anthropological Publications, VoL III, p. 19, Fig. 4, and p. 60, 
Fig. 32. 



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92 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



ceramic art.^ Instead are found the conventionalized buds, 
the stereotyped renderings of marine life, so familiar from the 
mainland.^ Many of these fragments, notably B, D, F, and I, 




Fig. 49. Late Mycenaean Sherds from Town (1 : 2). 

seem to be actual importations from the mainland; their good 
slip, finely polished surface, and lustrous paint suggest Furt- 

* Evans, Prehistoric Tombs 0/ Knossos, p. 120, Fig. 114, ^$d. 

2Cf. e.g. Furtwangler and Uschcke, Mykeniscbe k'asen, PL IV. 27b XII; PI. VI, 31 XII; 
and PI. XXXIV, 342. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 93 

wangler and Loschcke's third style. Other pieces, like A with 
its muddled, senseless design, might equally well be a native 
product. Such pieces are analogous to the vases of the period 
of final abandonment at Palaikastro and the period of reoccupa- 
tion at Gournia. Precisely the same type of pottery was found 
at Phylakopi, associated with the Mycenaean palace but coming 
from the very end of this palace period.^ 

The history of the main settlement on Vrokastro begins, 
therefore, in a period slightly posterior to that of the Zafer 
Papoura cemetery and contemporary with the end of the 
Mycenaean period at Phylakopi; or, in other words, in the 
period of the ''widest diffusion" of Mycenaean art. 

That this last phase of the art of the bronze age stands in 
the closest relation to that of the succeeding age of iron 
has been abundantly shown .^ The excavations at Vrokastro 
evince fresh proof of this. From its output of sherds a series 
might be arranged which would show the gradual transition 
from the Late Minoan III or, more properly, the late Myce- 
naean style to the geometric style. In the matter of design the 
distinction is particularly hard to draw; the sherd on Fig. 50 H 
might be called either Mycenaean or geometric. In technique, 
however, the difference is more easily apparent and serves as 
the best means of distinguishing the two wares. The fine hard 
slip, the polished surface, and lustrous paint of the imported 
pieces and the native imitations of this technique are unknown 
in the geometric period, when a more porous clay was used 
which absorbed the thin paint of the design. 

In Figs. 50-52 are shown typical sherds of the Vrokas- 
trian geometric style. The stratification of the town site 



'Phylakopi, PI. XXXII, i-io. 
* Wide, Jahrhucb, 1899, pp. 35-43. 



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94 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

indicated no chronological distinction between the quasi- 
geometric style of Figs. 50 and 5 1 and the fully developed style 




n I - J 

Fig. 50. Sherds of the Quasi-Geometric Style from the Town (i : 2). 

of the sherds shown in Fig. 52. Vases of both styles were found 
above floor levels. Luckily the tombs supplanted here the 
evidence of the houses and showed that a line of demarcation 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



95 



might be drawn between the two styles. The patterns pecu- 
liarly distinctive of the earlier quasi-geometric style are: tri- 
angles filled in solidly with black as in Fig. 50 E and Fig. 51 K; 




J ^ K 

Fig. 51. Sherds of the Quasi-Geometric Style from the Town (i : 2). 

upright ornaments filled in solidly with black and bounded 
on one side by a straight line, on the other by a curved, Fig. 50 A 
and Fig. 5 1 K, and edged frequently with a fringe of parallel 



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96 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



lines ;^ and circles in every form. The circles are mathematically 
exact and are drawn with compasses; the larger circles are 
frequently embellished with triangles and checkers. In this 
early stage of the geometric style, many curvilinear motives 
familiar in earlier decoration still persist. 




A D 

Fig. 52. Sherds of the Mature Geometric Style from the Town (4 : 9). 

As the Mycenaean tradition weakened and foreign models 
were more frequently seen, the meander or partial meander 
became favorite motives. Figs. 51 E and 52 C, D, and E. 

* This pattern occurs on a fragment from the Acropolis. Graef, Akropolis l^asen, Taf. 9, 
273. Cf. also Schliemann, Tiryns, p. 133, No. 47. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 97 

This pattern is generally associated with a compact and mathe- 
matical arrangement of the ornament. In this developed 
geometric style appear birds, human beings, and other motives 
characteristic of geometric vases elsewhere. 

The last phase of Vrokastrian ceramic art is represented 
by a group of sherds in Fig. 53. They were found in three 
different rooms but seem to come, with one exception, from a 
single vase. The clay is pale green and covered with a buff 
slip; the interior is entirely covered with a fine lustrous black 
paint that recalls the fine black paint on the better class of 
Dipylon ware. Fragments from the rim indicate that it was 
decorated with a row of squat birds, their wings represented 
by fringed lines. The main field is divided into zones and filled 
with representations of chariots and warriors armed with helmets, 
shields, and swords. According to the cursory method of the 
geometric style of drawing, the close-fitting cap of the helmet 
does not appear.^ The long conspicuous crest was evidently 
regarded as sufficient to indicate the entire helmet. The shields 
are of the usual type, flaring at top and bottom and cut away 
in the center, a type which, according to Reichel, was super- 
seded about the middle of the eighth century .^ The swords may 
be compared to those on a vase in Copenhagen.^ The chariots, 
as nearly as can be judged from these fragments, were drawn in 
a highly schematized manner, the floor of the chariot being 
entirely severed from the wheels. These seem to have had 
four spokes.* The stop-gap ornaments of these sherds are 
characteristic of the fully developed Dipylon style. 

The sherd in Fig. 53 E is in technique quite similar to the 

* Cf. Reichel, Homerische Waffen, pp. 109 and 1 10, Figs. 51 and 52. 

* Reichel, op. cU., p. 48, Fig. 25: Jabrbucb, 1899, p. 85, Fig. 44; and /4rcb. Zeit., 1885, PI. 8. 
3 Arcb. Zeit, 1885, PI. 8. 

* Cf. Reichel, op. cii., pp. 124-125, Figs. 64-67. 



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98 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



fragments just described. The panel to the right of the quatre- 
foil ornament was decorated with a bird. 

The clay of these fragments was, as was stated, of a 




Fig. 53. Latest Type of Sherds from the Town. All but E from One Vase (1 : 2). 

greenish color. That of the others in Figs. 50-52 shades in 
color from buff to pink. It is coarse and gritty and is rarely 
covered with a slip. The paint varies in color from brown to 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO 99 

black. White is also frequently used for the design — a pecu- 
liarity often noted of Cretan geometric vases and generally 
attributed to Minoan tradition. 

Objects Found. 
The objects found in 1 910 at Vrokastro, arranged accord- 
ing to the rooms in which they occurred, will now be described. 
The rooms, the numbers of which do not appear in the follow- 
ing lists, yielded nothing but potsherds. 

Room 6. 

Amphora, Fig. 54. The pieces of this vase were found 
in the southeast corner of the room, some of them under a col- 
lapsed wall. The vase was doubtless left in the corner of the 
room at the time of the abandonment of the site. It is made 
of buff clay; the exterior, from a line on the shoulder to the 
base, is covered with black paint except for a reserved panel 
between the handles, which is ornamented with zigzag lines 
and a row of herring-bone pattern. The shape of the vase, 
the type of double handle,^ and the reserved panel indicate 
a fully developed geometric style. 

The sherds that lay below the floor level of this room, 
which was in this case indicated by a column base, were prin- 
cipally of the late Mycenaean style. 

Room 8. 
I. Bronze fibula, PI. XIX b, asymmetrical, an arm having 
been introduced to include thick folds of drapery, but developed 
beyond doubt from the fiddle-bow type of fibula. A similar 
fibula was found in Tomb 38 at Enkomi, Cyprus.^ 

^ This type of handle has also an earlier history, Mackenzie, loc. cit., p. 433. 
' Murray, Excavations at Cyprus, p. 51 and Fig. 27. 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



. 2. Bronze disk, .03 m. diam., ornamented with two per- 
forations and with a circle of punctuated dots. This disk lay 
with the fibula in the upper stratum of deposit. At the same 
level further to the east were parts of three animal figures like 
those in Fig. 56, a triton shell, and bones of animals. 




Fig. 54. Amphora from Upper Stratum of Room 6 (i : 7). 

3. Parts of three badly corroded iron blades. These lay 
at the south end of the room together with the following. 

4. Round-bodied pithos, ht. .645, whole except for a break 
at the rim. 

5. Fragment of a fibula similar in type to that in 

PI. XX B. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



101 



Room 9. 

1. Clay face, Fig. 55 B, broken around the edges, from 
an image mounted on a cylindrical base like that of Fig. 55 A. 
Paint is applied to the chin, mouth, eyes, and nose. 

2. Large round-bodied pithos with rope pattern around 

the rim. 

3. Unpainted flaring bowl like 
that of Fig. 92. 

4. Horns of an agrimi. 

Room i i . 
Whether this room was reached 
by a passageway to the west of 





A B 

Fig. 55. A, Clay Figurine from Room 17; B. Face of Similar Figurine from Room 9(1 : 3). 



Rooms 9 and lo is uncertain, for the walls here were in a 
ruined condition. At the south end of room is a large 
boulder. A few feet from the boulder against the east wall 
of Room 1 1 were found the objects enumerated below. 

I . Terra cotta head of horse. Fig. 56 A, with bridle in painted 
relief. The bridle is like a modern one, except that it has no 
strap under the throat. The eyes, mouth, and forelock, as well 
as the bridle, are painted. 



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102 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



2. Horse's head, Fig. 56 B, which had served, it seems, as 
handle for a lid. Cf. Mon. AnU VI, PI. XII, 62. 

3. Head, body, and one foot of the horse shown in Fig. 
56 F. The other pieces were recovered in Room 17. 

4. Unpainted flask, with one handle, and slight centraJ 
protuberances. Fig. 57 E. 

5. Lid with painted rays from the central knob to the rim. 




Fig. 56. Clay Figurines from the Town (i : 8). 

6. Bronze disk .093 m. diam., ornamented with a central 
boss and row of punctuated dots around the rim. Fig. 58 H. 
There are four perforations in the part preserved and there 
must have been five originally, one in the center and four 
around the circumference. Similar objects were found in the 
Psychro Cave and called tentatively by Mr. Hogarth miniature 
shields.^ 



^ B. 5. /f., VI, p. 109, Fig. 41. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



103 



In Tomb B at ^Mouliana, Mr. Xanthoudides found similar 
but larger disks and connected them with the votive cymbals 
found at Olympia.^ 

7. Spear-end of hammered bronze, Fig. 59 D. The ferrule 
is made by means of two cross cuttings at the shoulders, the 
piece cut away being then bent and hammered around the 
shaft.2 

8. Spear-end of hammered bronze. Fig. 59 F. In this speci- 
men the transition from shoulder to ferrule is gradual; the 




D c e 

Fig. 57. Minoan (A, C, and D) and Geometric Pottery from the Town (i : 6). 

bronze of the blade is bent without cutting and hammered 
around the shaft. 

9. Spear-end of, hammered bronze, similar to the fore- 
going but larger, Fig. 59 C. 

10. Spear-end of cast bronze welded to iron shaft, Fig. 59 B. 
This specimen is of good lanceolate shape with a slight mid- 

1 *E^. *Apx- 1904. P- 45. Fig- i i; Olympia TaJeWand IV, PI. XXVI. 517. See also Darem- 
berg and Saglio, s. v. cymbala, and Arch. Anz., 1913, pp. 47-53. 
* For a similar type, cf. Carapanos, Dodona, PI. LVII, 8. 



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I04 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



rib; the piece of iron to which it is welded is broken at the 
further end and has a slightly greater diameter at this end 





m 



ivr 




Fig. $8. Miscellaneous Bronze Objects from lown and Tombs (2 : 3). 

than where it is joined to the spear-point. This seems to indi- 
cate that the entire shaft was made of iron. 

1 1 . Spear-end of cast bronze, Fig. 59 A, tip slightly broken. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



105 



The type is similar to that of the preceding, except that the 
blade is much longer and the transition from blade to shaft 




Fig. 59. Spear-ends from Room 1 1 and (E) Remains of Wooden Handle with Coating 
of Thin Bronze Sewn with Linen Thread (1 : 2). 

more gradual. A similar spear-end was found in the graves 
of Mycenae.^ These five bronze spear-ends lay close together 

• "E^^. 'Apx-. 1888. PL 9, 26. 



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io6 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



under the east wall of the room. Together with them were the 
rotted remains of two iron spear-ends. 

Room 12. 

In the northeast corner of this room, where the rock sloped 
sharply away, was a pithos containing the skull and bones of 
a child. It was inserted below the level of the floor and was 
not inverted. Inside the jar and just below the flat stone that 




Fig. 60. Vases from the Town (i : j). 

covered it was the cup of Fig. 60 B. It is decorated with hori- 
zontal bands and with groups of vertical lines straight and waved, 
on the shoulder. 

The practice of burying children in jars was usual both in 
the bronze age and in the succeeding age of iron.^ In the 
bronze age adults also were buried under inverted jars, so that 
the phenomenon is not then so striking as in the later period, 
when the bodies of adults were disposed of by quite different 



* See Spboungaras, p. 73; Philios, *E^. *A^;(., 1889, p. 186; Poulsen, Df> DipyUmgrab^r 
und die Dipylonvasen, pp. 23-25; Dragendorff, Tbera, II, p. 84. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



107 



methods. The place of burial is also in this case significant; 
the interment is made not in a cemetery but within the walls 
of a house. A parallel to this custom may now be adduced 
from the bronze age, for in recent excavations at Phylakopi on 
Melos, Mr. R. M. Dawkins found intra-mural burials which 
date from the closing period of the first city. 

From this room came also the krater of Fig. 61. The 
lower part of the vase is, save for the foot, unpainted. The 




Fig. 61. Krater in the Quasi-Geometric Style from Room 12 (1 : 5). 

upper part is painted black with a reserved panel between the 
shoulders, which is filled with two groups of concentric circles 
embellished with dots and by a central ornament made up of 
a parallelogram and triangles. 

Room 13. 
In the upper stratum of this room were found the following 
objects. 

I. Bowl, Fig. 60 A. This shape is one of the commonest 



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I08 ANTHROPOLCX5ICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

found on Vrokastro; its prototype appears in the Late Minoan 
III b period.^ The handles are horizontal and are placed high 
on the shoulder. The decoration of the reserved panel consists 
of a series of cross-hatched lozenges. 

2. Bronze fibula, PI. X I X, i . The thinner part of this speci- 
men is broken; whether it belonged to the clasp or to a flat 
ornament in the center of a symmetrical fibula is uncertain. 

3. Bronze pin, Fig. 58 C. This type corresponds closely 
to those found in the tombs {ibid. B and D). 

4. Slender bronze needle. 

5. Similar needle of bone. 

Room 17. 
This was one of the rooms in which the deposits of pottery 
had been overturned. Few sherds were found near the east 
wall; near the west wall, whither the rains had carried them, 
were fragments of geometric pottery underlying typical Late 
Minoan III pieces. At the south end of the room under a 
flimsy wall indicated by dotted lines on the plan were the 
objects enumerated below. 

1. Clay head on columnar basis. Fig. 55 A. The workman- 
ship is crude. A reddish paint is applied profusely to the hair, 
lips, eyes, and forehead. The long curls, which are plastically 
rendered, extended once to the bottom of the base, which is 
further adorned with a panel of geometric ornament. 

2. Fragments of figurines of animals, including several 
pieces of the horse of Fig. 56 F, the legs and other parts of a sim- 
ilar figurine, the head of a sheep, Fig. 56 E. With these were 
the horns of an agrimi and a triton shell, the invariable accom- 
paniment of figurines on Vrokastro. They indicate a shrine, 

* B. S. A., IX, p. 319, Fig. 19. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. IO9 

and in view of the fact that pieces of the same figure were 
recovered from different rooms, it seems likely that they come 
from a single shrine, the offerings at which had been thrown 
out into neighboring areas. 

3. Fragment of heavy bar of iron, rectangular in section.^ 

4. Glass bead. 

5. Fragment of iron blade. 

Room 20. 

The principal object found in this room was the bowl of 
Fig. 60 D. It is made of coarse, porous clay and is decorated 
with a simple meander painted in dull black. This bowl was 
found in the uppermost stratum and dates accordingly from 
the last period of the Vrokastro settlement. Immediately 
below the floor level marked by this vase were Late Mycenaean 
fragments, one of which is shown in Fig. 49 G; this juxtaposi- 
tion of L. M. Ill b and geometric types may indicate that the 
intervening period of quasi-geometric art was short. 

Room 21. 

Three cups with broken bases from a kernos. Compare 
B. S. A. XII, p. 16, Figs. 3 and 4. 

Room 22. 

From the uppermost stratum of this room came most of 
the pieces of the bowl shown in PI. XXVI. The others were 
found in Room 24. The clay of which this vase is made differs 
widely from that of the other Vrokastro specimens. It is fine 
and hard and its color is a dark, reddish brown. The shape, 

* Cf. KSrte, Gordion, in Erganiungshand V of Jabrbucb, p. 79, abb. 69 b. 



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I 10 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

a large shallow pyxis, is a familiar type in the geometric period.^ 
The lid, of which a single fragment only was recovered, was 
doubtless surmounted by a high handle. The decoration is 
applied in the compact and mathematical manner of the fully 
developed style of the mainland. The separate motives, espe- 
cially the swastika, indicate the same period. Because of the 
clay and of the character of the ornament, this vase must be 
regarded as an importation. The sherds in the two rooms 
where the pieces of this vase were found were of the typical 
Vrokastro geometric style analogous to the vase of Fig. 60 D. 
We may infer, therefore, that the compact style of the main- 
land was contemporary with the open geometric style of Crete. 

Room 24. 

In the upper stratum of this room were found the following 
objects. 

1. Clay scoop, ht. .07 cm. The handle of this specimen 
serves also as a means of support.^ 

2. Two-handled bowl with cup-like spout. Fig. 57 B.^ 

3. Lid with moulded decoration about the rim. 

4. Unpainted clay dish of the shape of the vase in Fig. 60 D 
containing a light spongy brown mass which proved on chemical 
analysis to be a mixture of iron, lime, and silica with a small 
amount of aluminum. The iron was present in the form of 
limonite, lime in the form of calcite, and the silica in the form 
of sand composed of grains of quartz. Apparently, this was a 
charge for smelting, the sand having been added as a flux. 



' Cf. e.g. 'E«^. 'Apx-, 1898. PL IV, 6. 

* For a similar type see Xanthoudides/E^.'Apx-, 1904, p. 18, Fig. 2, and Hogarth, B. S. A. 
VI, p. 105. 

* Cf. Wace and Thompson, Prehistoric Tbessaly, p. 2 1 1, Fig. 146 c. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. Ill 

Room 25. 
In a mass of debris thrown into a deep pocket in this room 
was found the crude model of a horse and chariot shown in 
Fig. 62, an imitation probably of Cypriote models. 

Room 26. 
Two well-marked deposits dating the one from the geo- 
metric, the other from the Middle Minoan period were found 
in this room. The level of the 
upper deposit was marked by the 
presence of whole vases. The fol- 
lowing objects were found. 

1. Jar with panel of meander 
ornament. Fig. 60 C. The upper 
part of this vase is covered with 
dark paint except for a reversed 
panel on either shoulder on which 
is painted a partial meander. -^ 

2. Two clay weights in the Pig. 62. crude Model of Chanot and 
shape of truncated pyramids.^ charioteer from Room 25 (5 : 8). 

3. Head of clay figurine, Fig. 63. The lower surface shows 
a broken edge, the outline of which indicates that the head was 
once mounted on a columnar basis like that of Fig. 55 A. The 
face was originally covered with a slip which has been chipped 
off from the cheeks and along the outer edge, leaving a coarser 
red clay exposed beneath. The eyebrows, eyelashes, lips and 
chin show traces of red paint; a protruding bit of clay on the 
right cheek is the only remnant of the moulded curls which 
once bordered the face. The expression of the face achieves 

* Cf. Doerpfeld, Troia und Ilion, p. 410, Fig. 416. 




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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



in this figure something akin to dignity and reveals far higher 
skill in the koroplastic art than do other figurines from the site. 

4. Symmetrical beaded fibula, PI. XX B. This fibula is 
of the same type as those from the bone-enclosures discussed 
below on p. 84. 

5. Two bronze disks with central perforations, probably 
used as pendants. Fig. 58 E and F.^ 

6. In the lower deposit of this room above a floor of trodden 
earth were found the pieces of the jar in Fig. 64. It is wheel 




Fig. 63. Head of Clay Figurine from Upper Stratum of Room 26 (i : 2). 

made and the clay is coarse, but because of its shape, its simple 
curvilinear ornament and the position where it was found, it 
must be assigned to the Middle Minoan period. 

7. In the lower level of this room but unassociated with 
Minoan sherds was a child-burial in a jar. It was found in the 
southwest corner and belongs doubtless to the geometric period. 

» Cf. Argive Heraum II, PI. XCIX; British Museum Catalog of Terra-cottas, PI. XIV; Mon. 
Ant. VII, 239 and 241, Figs. 31 and 32. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. II 3 

Room 27. 
The stratification of this room has already been described 
and mention has been made of the lamp of Fig. 57 D from the 
uppermost stratum. At a level only slightly lower than this 
lamp and at a distance of only a few centimeters from Late 
Minoan III b sherds was found a fibula of fiddle-bow type. 




Fig. 64. Middle Minoan Jar from Lowest Stratum, Room 26 (i : 6). 

PI. XIX A. This is the only fibula of this type that came to 
light in either town or tombs. It is generally held to be the oldest 
type of fibula known to the Mediterranean area; it was found 
in Tomb No. 8 of the lower town at Mycenae.^ It belongs 
accordingly to the Late Minoan III period. The fact that this 
fibula did not occur in the Zafer Papoura cemetery confirms the 

1 *Eil>. 'Apx., 1888, PI. 9, I and 2. 



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114 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

Statement of p. 19, that Vrokastro takes up the tale of Cretan 
ceramic history where the Knossian cemetery leaves off. 

The following Middle Minoan specimens were recovered 
from this room. 

1. Cup, .07 cm. high, .096 m. diam., of brown clay. Fig. 
57 A. The inside is entirely covered with brownish black paint, 
and is further decorated with white festoons. The outside has 
a broad band about the rim and another about the base. Traces 
remain of narrower stripes which encircled the body of the vase. 

2. Jug, PI. XXV, I, part of spout missing. The entire 
surface of the vase is covered with a metallic black paint 
over which are splashes of white. The decoration, which 
presents a new phase of Minoan ornament, seems to imitate 
the surface of a breccia vase. 

Room 30. 
Veined marble bowl, ht. .05 m., diam. of mouth .046 m. 
As in the case of the other stone vases from Vrokastro, only 
a small piece of stone has been removed from the center, so 
that a thick wall is left. This method is characteristic of the 
decadent period of stone-cutting and stands in marked contrast 
to the skillful cutting of the delicate Early Minoan stone vases. 

2. Fragments of a steatite cup. 

3. Clay seal with rosette on the sealing surface. Fig. 65. 

Room 36. 

In the upper stratum, a veined marble bowl was found, 
ht. .04 m., diam. of mouth .042 m. 

Near the number 36 on the plan where a wall runs at right 
angles to the escarpment of the rock, earth and fragments of 
pottery were noticed beneath the wall. The stones of the wall 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. II5 

were accordingly removed and the following Middle Minoan 
pieces brought to light . 

1. Part of cup, Fig. 66 A, decorated with white spirals 
interspersed with leaves. 

2. Low, straight-sided cup, ht. .054, diam. of mouth, .082, 
decorated with heart-shaped motives embellished within with 
leaves, two of which are red and two white. The same design 
is also applied to the base of the cup, the interstices of the 
pattern being here filled with triangles. 

3. Cup of similar shape. Fig. 66 B. The restoration of the 
design is possible from the fragments preserved; it 
consists of clusters of loops connected with slant- 
ing lines. A similar ornament decorates the base. 

4. Lid, Fig. 57 C, with central knob and dec- 
oration of loops. 

5. Small jug with incised ornament. Fig. 67. 
This vase is the exact counterpart of vases found 
at Chamaizi (Xafiai^i), and published in *E<^. *A/)x., 
1906, PI. 9, 1,2, and 3. It belongs to the Early 
Minoan II period and is the only specimen from Vrokastro 
which can be assigned to so early an epoch. The other 
vases from beneath this wall were associated with sherds 
characteristic of the Middle Minoan I period. 

Just east of 36, on the limit of the plan, was found a small 
bronze saw like those found in the tombs. Further to the 
southeast near the crest of the hill where the soil was shallowest 
the workmen were in the habit of gathering for their noonday 
recess. They one day noticed that the inch or so of soil which 
here remained was packed with chips and filings of bronze. 
Evidently a smithy had been located here. Among the hundreds 
of bits found was a conical piece terminating in a hook. The 




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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



workmen at once recognized it as the tip end of a distaff, the 
piece which holds the wool. Similar distaff ends were found 
by Mr. Hogarth in the Psychro Cave.^ 

The group of houses which was unearthed in 191 2 yielded 
less than that dug in 1910. The sherds were numerous, but 
unbroken pieces or such as could be restored were few. No 
Minoan sherds were found except in fillings. Ordinarily there 
was only one stratum to be taken into account, that of the 
geometric period. Of the objects now to be enumerated from 





A D 

Fig. 66. Middle Minoan Cups from beneath Wall of Room 36 (2 : 3). 

these houses, no two came from the same room. They will 
therefore be listed without regard to their finding-place. 

1. Bowl of a type frequently represented by the sherds. 
Fig. 68 B, the handles and other pieces missing. The coarse, 
gritty clay has a buff color. The interior, both at the base and 
around the rim, has been daubed with reddish paint. Of the 
outside the lower half is also covered with the same. On the 
shoulder vertical lines divide the reserved space into two panels 
each decorated with a row of quirks. 

2. Similar bowl. Fig. 68 C. The rim is painted within as 

1 fl. 5. //. VI, p. 112, Fig. 46. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. II7 

well as without. The interior is further decorated with a hori- 
zontal band about the shoulders. On the outside the lower 
part is left undecorated; the upper part shows the usual panel 
decoration, the ornament consisting here of a dotted network 
pattern. 

3. Similar bowl, Fig. 69. The decoration which fills the 
panel is made up of straight lines, vertical and diagonal. 

4. Jug with pour-handle and two low horizontal handles, 
PI. XXVI I, 3. The neck and a part of the pour-handle is mis- 
sing. The clay is coarse and gritty and the decoration badly 
worn. This vase presents close analogies to that in Fig. 99 B, 
from Bone-enclosure VI, and serves accord- 
ingly to connect the houses with the later 
type of tomb. 

5. Amphora, PI. XXVI II, found in one 
of the upper corners of the room, the very 
uneven floor of which appears in PI. XXI 11. 
The shape is typical of the fully developed 
geometric style. The clay is slightly more 
reddish than that usual on Vrokastro, but ^^' ^ ^ * ^ 
the difference is not enough to warrant the inference that this 
is an imported piece. The decoration is confined to a small 
area of the vase. Broad and narrow horizontal stripes cover 
almost entirely the lower portion. A reserved panel on the 
neck is ornamented with a meander motive framed with lines. 
A second reserved panel on the shoulder is divided horizontally 
into three sections and filled with zigzags and dots. The 
handles are ornamented with linear patterns. 

6. As stated on p. 7, the walls on the north face of Vro- 
kastro were several times tested for the purpose of ascertaining 
their date. At a distance of a hundred meters or so from the 




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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



houses dug in 191 2, and half-way between these houses and 
the point where the north face of the mountain falls away in 
precipitous cliffs, a cave-like recess was examined. It con- 
tained the bowl of PI. XXIX, 2. It was inverted and below 
it were traces of a few bones, unburned. It was doubtless a 
child-burial adjacent to houses on this part of the hill. The 

clay is coarse and gritty, the paint 
a mere wash, and the decoration 
crude. Panels are reserved in the 
usual way on the shoulder and in 
them are painted groups of vertical 
lines; the intermediate spaces are 
cross-hatched. On either side of this 
decoration are curvilinear motives, 
the poor relic of Minoan naturalism. 
7. In the hardpan, which served 
as floor at one end of a large room, 
a circular depression had been cut 
within which was found a bowl con- 
taining the bones of a small animal. 
These bones were sent to Professor 
Keller of Zurich, who . kindly ex- 
amined them for me and declared 
them to be those of a rodent, and 
not of a domesticated animal. 
8. After the discovery of the large chamber-tomb (p. 49) 
on Karakovilia, a search was made for more tombs in this 
vicinity. These were not found, but house-walls everywhere 
came to light. Most of these houses were blackened by fire. 
In one of them, that directly opposite the large chamber-tomb, 
was a cup which also was blackened by fire. It is made of 




Fig. 68. A, Jug: B and C, Bowls 

(i : 5). 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



119 



coarse, buff clay and is covered with black paint, save for one 
reserved panel opposite the handle, which is ornamented with 
a waved line and with a row of quirks between horizontal lines. 
9. In an adjacent house south of the chamber-tomb, was 
found a low open dish of smooth, finely polished gray ware. 
The finish of the clay recalls Early Minoan II or even neolithic 
ware. The handles are pared into shape and contain perfora- 
tions for attaching a lid. Together with the fragments of this 
vase were found those of a similar dish which showed a number 
of holes where it had been anciently mended. The rest of the 




Fig. 69. Bowl from the Town. 

sherds from this room were of ordinary geometric types. 
The entirely different character of the clay and the finish of 
these vases imply that they were either importations or heir- 
looms. A similarly shaped vase from Mirabello province is pub- 
lished by Mr. Droop in B. S. A., XI 1, p. 38, Fig. 16. This 
specimen and the others cited in the discussion concerning it 
differ from ours in that their bases are decorated with a foliate 
ornament which is regarded by Mr. Droop as Minoan. It is not 
strikingly such, but it may at least be said that the decoration, 
like the clay and technique, must be regarded as either archaic 
or foreign. On the whole, this is a ware which might repay 
further investigation. 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



The objects other than pottery found in 191 2 in the 
Vrokastro houses are as follows : 

1 . Four bronze rings, Fig. 70. 

2. A quantity of small faience beads like the smallest 
beads shown in PI. XXXV. 

3. Sword of cast bronze, PI. XXI G, the tip broken. The 
blade is adorned with three grooves. Two rivets are still in 
place and there is a hole for a third. This sword was found 
together with a clay disk like that in Fig. 83, and pieces of 
geometric bowls. In the same room were bones. It may be, 

accordingly, that we have here to 
do with a burial adjacent to a 
house. These objects were found 
in the upper level, so that they 
cannot represent a burial beneath 
the floor of a house.^ 

4. Bronze wedge. Fig. 70 D, 
from the room adjoining that in 
which the foregoing were found. 

5. Implement of soft stone, 
probably a whetstone. Fig. 70 H. It is too light to have 
served as an instrument for cutting or as a chisel. Except for 
the lack of perforations it resembles the whetstone from 
Chamber-Tomb IV. 

6. Bronze needle. 

7. Bronze pin with large head, Fig. 70 G. 




^ Since going to press there has appeared in Vol. XVI if, p. 282, of the Annual of the 
British School at Athens an article by Mr. T. £. Peet in regard to similar sword-blades 
found in Egypt. One of these bears the cartouche of Seti 1 1 and dates from the last of 
the thirteenth century B. C. This date is considerably earlier than that to which the 
Vrokastro sword is assigned, but it is to be noted first, that the sword bearing the cartouche 
of Seti II is not certainly of the same type as that reproduced by Mr. Peet and secondly, 
that, as he himself suggests, it is a type that "may have been current for many years". 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



121 




Fig. 71 (2 : 3). 



8. Bronze figurine with arms upraised, Fig. 71. This figu- 
rine is the only specimen of the kind found on Vrokastro: the 

position of the upraised arms is interesting 
because of its resemblance to the attitudes 
of Late Minoan terra-cotta figurines. 

9. Sealstone of steatite, Fig. 72, found 
near the surface. No sherds lay close at 
hand, but those at the same level some 
distance away were of the geometric period. 
The ornament on the sealing surface is a 
highly conventionalized squid.^ 

In enumerating the objects from the 
Vrokastro houses there should not be left 
out of account the humbler objects for 
domestic use. Among these were a saddle 
quern, several stone polishers, and whetstones of various shapes. 
The material for the latter was probably quarried at Elouda 
('EXovKTa), a place which today furnishes whetstones for the 
islanders. At a low level in one room a green steatite celt 
came to light, a survival of the Early Minoan period. Quad- 
rangular blocks of stone containing a central depression were 
frequently noted; the workmen ventured the explanation that 
they had been used in spinning to support and keep in a 
constant position the end of the spindle. Whorls for spindles 
were also found. These are shown in Fig. 73, to- 
gether with perforated pieces of steatite and clay 
beads which were evidently used as ornaments. ^. 
These crude ornaments were mdeed so numerous as (3:4). 
to be one of the characteristic features of a geometric deposit, 

' For Late Minoan seals in geometric surroundings, cf. B. S. A. VI 1 1, p. 270. 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. Ill 



and might well serve to identify any Cretan site of this period.^ 
The oblong piece of steatite ornamented with dots and irreg- 
ular lines was purchased of a man who found it on the 
lower slopes of Vrokastro. 




Fig. 73 Spindle-whorls and Ornaments of Clay and Steatite from the Town (i : 2). 



» Cf. A. J. A., 1901, p. 282. Fig. 8. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 1 23 



THE TOMBS. 

In addition to the burials of children beneath the floors 
of houses, four types of interments were found in the vicinity 
of Vrokastro. They were: chamber-tombs (7), bone-enclosures 
(12), pithos-bu rials (4), and a single interment underneath 
an overhanging rock. 

The chamber-tombs were sunk, as already stated, in the 
white chalky soil known as kouskoura, an exceedingly hard 
subsoil, and were lined with rubble masonry. In no case was 
a roof intact, but the uppermost course showed in several 
instances an inward projection. In Fig. 74 is shown a dia- 
grammatic plan of Tomb I on Karakovilia, which, although 
it was both larger and more regularly constructed than the 
others, is yet typical. Details of construction will be given 
for each tomb. 

Chamber-Tomb I on Karakovilia. 

The dimensions of this tomb may be seen from the dia- 
gram. Against the wall opposite the dromos was found a 
circular stone, in the neighborhood of which most of the bones 
and fragments of vases were found. It apparently had served 
as a table of offerings.^ The disturbed condition of the tomb, 
however, does not warrant positive statements. It will be 
seen from the appended lists that thirty-three vases with many 
more cups were recovered from this tomb. Of these only 
four or five, those which had been inserted in other vases and 
two or three cups, were intact; the others had to be pieced 

» Cf. B. S. A. VI, p. 83. 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 








Fig. 74. Diagrammatic Plan and Section of Chamber Tomb No. i. 



METER. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 1 25 

together from countless fragments. As a result of heavy rains 
or of other natural processes, both bones and vase-fragments 
had worked their way through the soil to a considerable 
distance from their original position; some pieces of the vase 
of PI. XXX were found at a height of .65 m. from the floor 
of the tomb, others on the floor itself. Pieces of the tripod of 
Fig. 80 were recovered from the four corners of the tomb. 
Almost all the pieces of the various objects found in the tomb 
were, however, eventually recovered. 

The floor of the tomb had evidently been strewn with 
sand and river-pebbles, for these were found in abundance. 
In the northeast corner was a rectangular depression, .26 m. 
long, .22 m. broad, and .15 m. deep. Nothing but a few 
potsherds was found within it. It may have been used for 
libations.^ 

The bones recovered from this tomb were in a very frag- 
mentary condition. Most of them showed indisputable traces 
of burning, some bits being actually burned to charcoal. In at 
least two cases the burned bones had been buried within jars.^ 
In other cases the bones were interred outside jars; whether 
all of these had been burned or not was difficult to determine 
because of their rotted condition. They were found in a small 
heap, which indicates that the body was at least not stretched 
out to its full length. One child's skull was found which it was 
plain to see had not been burned; evidently the bodies of 
children who were buried within tombs were also an exception 
to the practice of cremation. It was estimated that at least 
six interments had been made within this tomb. 

» A comparable pit was found in Tomb A at Mouliana, "E^.'Apx-. 1904, p. 24, Fig. 5. It 
was, however, of a different shape. 

*One of these jars is shown in Fig. 77; the other was a coarse, unpainted jar and is not 
shown. 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



The vases from this tomb are as follows. 

I. Large straight-sided jar, PI. XXX, of soft yellowish clay. 
The decoration, which is badly worn, is divided into narrow 
vertical panels which are filled with simple linear motives and 




Fig. 75. Flask of the Quasi-Geometric Style from Chamber-Tomb I (1 : 4). 

with the triangles characteristic of an early stage of Cretan 
geometric art.^ The handles are curious; they are flat and are 
applied to the outer surface of the vase from the rim nearly 



* For the use of triangles in this period compare Wide, Atben. Mitt. XXXV, p. 21, and PI. 



VI, 2. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. I27 

to the base.^ The fragments of this jar were found scattered 
throughout the tomb; whether it originally contained human 
remains is accordingly uncertain. 

2. Large flask, Fig. 75, of soft yellow clay. The design, 
which is badly worn, consists on either face of the flask of con- 
centric circles, broken once by a circle of zigzag lines.^ The 
neck is entirely covered with black paint, below which is a fringe 
of vertical lines. Around the outside of the vase from handle 
to handle runs a chain of triangles. The pieces of this extraor- 
dinarily large flask, which measures no less than .455 m. in 
height and .37 m. in diameter, were found scattered throughout 
the tomb. 

3. Open-work vase of soft bufl^ clay, PI. XXXI, 2. The 
horizontal parts of the vase and the perforated quadrangular 
pieces were once covered with a reddish brown paint, of which 
little now remains. The slanting pieces of the lower part seem 
to have been unpainted. The openings of the vase were appar- 
ently cut when the vase was partially hardened. Such open- 
work vases, useful for holding fruit or the like, are common in 
the geometric period,* but have not been found before in Crete. 

4. Open-work vase similar to the foregoing except that the 
pattern in both upper and lower courses is the same, PI. XXXI, 
I. Only the horizontal pieces were painted. 

5. Bowl and cover, PI. XXX II, 2, of soft bufl* clay. The 
design on the shoulder, painted in dull brown, consists of groups 
of vertical lines and rows of short slanting lines. Intervening 
panels are adorned with a single horizontal waved line. The 



» For similar handles, cf. the jar from Erganos, A. J. A., 1901, PI. VI, 4. 

« Cf. Wide, loc. cit, p. 28 and PI. 5, 2. 

'Cf. Dragendorflf, Tbera II, p. 151, Abb. 363 and 364; id., p. 308, Abb. 495; Annali del 
Instituto, Vol. 44, 1872, Tav. d'agg. K 12; Jabrbucb, 1888, p. 341, Fig. 23; Atben. Mitt., 1893. 
Pi. VI 1 1. 4; *E«^- *Apx . I. 1898. P- 107, Fig. 27. 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



lower parts of the vase and the lid are decorated with bands; 
the handles are also decorated with horizontal stripes. The 
lid has two perforations by which it was tied to the handle. 
6. Similar amphora and cover, PI. XXXI I, i. The clay 
is the same as in the preceding; the paint is redder. The lids 
and lower parts of the vases correspond exactly. The decoration 
on the shoulder here consists of horizontal rows of triangles, 
those in the second row being differently set from the others. 




Fig. 76. Krater of the Quasi-Geometric Style from Chamber-Tomb I (1 : 6). 

7. Krater, Fig. 76, of good buff clay. The interior is 
covered with black paint. On the outside the decoration consists 
of horizontal bands and of the pattern described on p. 2 1 . The 
handles are of a double type frequent in the geometric period. 

8. Large jar which contained vase 26, and burned bones 
inside. Fig. 77. The clay is reddish buff; the decoration con- 
sists of horizontal bands and on the shoulder of groups of 
vertical lines, the outermost of which are fringed. 

9. Kylix of fine buff clay and good hard slip, PI. XXV, 2. 
The design is painted in reddish brown and consists of horizontal 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 1 29 

bands, a row of lozenges on the shoulder, and another of tri- 
angles on the foot. The interior is covered with dark paint. 
The handles are embellished with knobs. 

10. Bowl of gritty buff clay. The inside is covered with a 
thin black paint. The color of the paint on the outside shades 
from brown to red. The pattern resembles that of 5. 

11. Similar bowl of fine buff clay with slip, PI. XXIX, i. 
Part of the foot and several other pieces are missing. The 




Fig. 77. Krater from Chamber-Tomb I (i :6). 

paint used for the interior and for the design shades from brown 
to black. The decoration presents a new combination of familiar 
motives; it resembles that of PI. XXXI I, 2, but has in addition 
the quasi-Minoan curl which appeared on the vase on PI. 
XXIX, 2. 

12-17. Similar smaller bowls, Fig. 78. The clay of which 
they are made is light, thin, and well sifted. The interior as 
heretofore is covered with dark paint. The design consists 
merely of horizontal bands and groups of vertical lines. 



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130 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

1 8. Similar bowl, the decoration of which was achieved 
by dipping the vase as far as the foot into dark paint. This 
bowl together with the preceding numbers ia-17 are, as regards 
shape, merely enlargements of the following. 

19-22. Cups, decorated like the above by being dipped 
into black paint. Fig. 79. Four specimens were nearly intact. 
It was estimated that 33 had originally been interred in the 
tomb. These cups abound on every Cretan geometric site. 
They were found by Mr. Hogarth in the geometric graves at 




Fig. 78. Bowl from Chamber-Tomb I (i : 3). 

Knossos;^ by Mrs. Hawes at Kavousi;^ by Sig. Halbherr at 
Erganos; and lately in great numbers by Mr. Hagidakis in the 
upper stratum at Tylissos. They have also been found in 
Thessaly.^ 

23. Pieces of an oinochoe, of soft yellow clay with high 
slim neck and twisted handle. The entire vase was covered 
with a reddish paint. The clay of this specimen was only par- 
tially baked and consequently crumbled to bits. 

» B. S. A. VI, p. 84, Fig. 26. 

^A.J.A., 1901, PI. I (opp. 124). 

* Wace and Thompson, Prehistoric Tbessaly, p. 209 c. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. I31 

24. Upper part of flaring bowl of good buff clay. The design 
painted in brown consists of groups of vertical and slanting 
lines, the outermost fringed. The shape of the rim indicates 
that the bowl once had a cover. 

25. Amphora, PI. XXXIII, of buff clay. Pieces from the 
rim were not recovered. The lower part of the vase is decorated 
with two broad and two narrow bands of reddish paint. On 
the shoulder are groups of concentric half-circles within the 
innermost of which is what looks to be a survival of a Late 
Minoan III stereotyped bud.^ Waved lines ornament the 
neck and appear also in the decoration of the shoulder. 

26. Amphora of fine buff clay orna- 
mented with horizontal bands and with a 
single zigzag line on the shoulder. The shape 
with its slender foot and narrow neck is in 
marked contrast to the preceding amphora. 
This specimen was found intact together 

. Fig. 79 ( 

with burned bones within the jar of Fig. 77. 

27-28. Pieces of two flasks similar to that of Fig. 95, but 
smaller. One has an air vent bored through the base of the 
handle. 

29. Small cup of buff clay, part of rim lacking. The 
decoration in dark paint is confined to two horizontal stripes 
and to a row of vertical lines about the shoulder. This cup was 
found, together with the pieces of twelve iron blades, in an 
unpainted jar of coarse clay. 

30-32. Unpainted bowl of fine bufl^ clay. The shape is 
unusually graceful and well fashioned. It terminates below 
in a point as do the covers to the vases in PI. XXXII. The 




* Cf. Transactions of the Department of Arcbaohgy of the University of Pennsylvania, 
Vol. It, Part I. p. 39, Fig. 53. 



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132 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

handles, which are nearly cylindrical, are attached horizontally 
just below the rim. Pieces of two other similar bowls were also 
recovered. 

33. Biigelkanne of fine buff clay with slip. This was the 
only biigelkanne from the tomb. It resembles closely that 
shown in PI. XXVI 1, i. Like the other specimens from Vro- 
kastro, it has an air-hole on the shoulder opposite the spout, 
and a small knob on the top of the false neck, both character- 
istic of post-Mycenaean biigelkannen.^ The decoration consists 
of horizontal bands and of various combinations of zigzag 
lines. 

The objects other than pottery from this tomb were as 
follows . 

I. Bronze tripod support, ht. 377 m., Fig. 80 and PI. 
XXXIV, I. The fragments of this tripod were found scattered 
throughout the tomb. All were recovered except a part of 
one leg and portions of the cross supports. No traces were found, 
however, of a bowl or cauldron which surmounted it. The 
tripod is made of cast bronze. It consists of a circular support 
resting on three legs ornamented with lateral ridges and midribs 
which terminate at the top in scrolls like those on early Ionic 
capitals. Above the scrolls is a low abacus. The legs are flat 
except for a rounded piece above the circular foot; they are 
strengthened by slanting supports which pass from a point 
at a third of the distance of their height to the circular top, and 
by horizontal braces which are united in a central ring. 

This tripod is in type quite similar to one found by Mr. 
Hogarth in Grave 3 of the geometric cemetery of Knossos, 
PI. XXXIV, 2, where it was associated with a fully developed 

» Cf. Wide. Atben. Mitt., XXXV, p. 19; and Jabrbucb, 1899. p. 41, Fig. 26; Xanthoudidcs. 
•E«^. 'Apx-. 1904* P- 44- 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



»33 



Style of geometric pottery.^ The chief difference is in size, that 
from Knossos being only half as high as our specimen; there 
is also this difference, that the midrib on the legs of the 
Vrokastro tripod divides and follows the curves of the volutes. 




Fig. 80. Restoration of Bronze Tripod from Chamber-Tomb 1(1:4). 

whereas that of the Knossos specimen extends straight to the 
abacus. 

Another striking parallel to this tripod may be adduced 
from Cyprus. In Grave 58 at Enkomi, were found the pieces 



^Set B.S.A. VI, p. 83, Fig. 25. Mr. Hogarth has generously allowed me to reproduce 
this specimen here. 



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134 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

of a tripod now in the British Museum and reproduced here, 
PI. XXX IV, 3, by kind permission of Mr. A. H. Smith. It is 
slightly taller than our specimen^ and the circular support is 
decorated with rows of herring-bone ornaments. The abacus 
is lacking and the midrib of the legs runs straight to the top 
as in the Knossos specimen. It also apparently once had 
horizontal supports uniting in a central ring. This Enkomi 
tripod was found with iron blades, an ivory draught-box, and 
native Cypriote ware.^ Another tripod similar in type but 
bearing on its circular support a frieze of running animals, was 
found at Curium by Cesnola, and is now in the Metropolitan 
Museum.^ 

And lastly may be cited for purposes of comparison, a 
tripod found in a geometric grave southwest of the Pnyx.* 
It is .45 m. high. The legs are ornamented with herring-bone 
ornament, the circular top with a row of spirals, between bands 
of rope pattern.* 

In spite of differences in ornamentation, these tripods 
correspond closely in form and must date from approximately 
the same period. In determining this period, the Mycenaean 
character of the Curium tripod and the geometric associations 
of the Knossos and the Athens specimens are important; the 
former indicate the end of the Mycenaean period, the latter the 



' Both Mr. Hogarth and Dr. Poulsen wrongly suppose that this Enkomt specimen is of 
much smaller dimensions; the latter {Jabrhuch XXVI, p. 339) calls it a "Miniaturdreifuss." 
In reality it is .43 m. high. 

* See Murray, Excavations in Cyprus, p. 31. See also, fl. 5 /f. XVIII, p. 95. 

' See Cesnola, Cyprus^ lis Cities and Tombs, p. 335; Furtwingler, Sit^ungsbericbte der hayern 
Akad., 1905, p. 270. 

< Atben. MiU., 1893, p. 414. PL XIV. 

' The statement of Dr. Poulsen, loc. cii., that the Enkomi tripod resembles this Dipylon 
specimen *'bis in die kleinsten Details" is obviously an exaggeration. With these tripods should 
also be compared the fragment from the Acropolis, De Ridder, Bronzes trouvies sur I'acropole 
d'Aibhnes, p. 23, Fig. 24. For the further development of this form of tripod support, compare 
Mon. Ant. VII, pp. 290-326. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. I 35 

period of the fully developed geometric style. Since, however, 
the Mycenaean style lived on late in Cyprus, the Curium 
specimen need not be assigned to a period earlier than that 
known as ''sub-Mycenaean" and since, on the other hand, such 
pieces of bronze-work would doubtless survive for several genera- 
tions, the Athens specimen and that from Knossos may well 
have been made, not in the period of a mature geometric style 
to which the pottery found with them belonged, but in an 
earlier period of the iron age. We thus arrive at the conclusion 
that these tripods date from the sub-Mycenaean or early geo- 
metric period. To substitute for these general terms specific 
dates, is difficult. One piece of archaeological evidence, however, 
is available in the connection established by Furtwangler between 
a group of Cypriote bronzes and the bronze paraphernalia made 
for King Solomon's temple by Hiram of Tyre.^ He pointed 
out that a bronze cart found at Larnaka, Cyprus, corresponded 
exactly to the description in 2 Kings, VII, 27-37, of the mekonoth 
made by Hiram. Another similar cart was found in Grave 
97, Enkomi. Both specimens present such striking analogies 
to the tripods described both as regards technique and ornamen- 
tation that it is plausible to regard them all as the products of 
a single Cypriote foundry. Furtwangler assigned the Enkomi 
tripod to ca, 1000 B. C. and the Athens specimen to the following 
century.^ 

2. Six faience seals, all intact but one which is broken along 
its shorter diameter. Fig. 81 and PI. XXXV. The faience of 
which they are made is now rotted and friable. No traces of 

* Sit;ungsberichte der hayern. Akad. der IVissenschaften, 1899, Part II, p. 420-43). Cf. also 
Stade, Zeitscbrift fur die altUstamentlicbe iVissenscbaft, 1901, Vol. XXI, p. 145, and G. Karo, 
Arcbiv.fikr ReligionswissenscbafU VIII, Beiheft, pp. 54-65. 

* Poulsen, loc. cit., pp. 228 and 247, endorses this date, assigning this tripod to a period 
slightly anterior to 1000 B. C. 



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136 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

blue coloring remain; these were abundant, however, on the 
beads which were found with the seals and were doubtless worn 
with them. The backs of the seals consist each of a pair of 
shells between which is a perforation. The sealing surfaces 
bear in intaglio pseudo-hieroglyphs, three being like that of 
Fig. 81, 2, and two like that of Fig. 81, 3. The sixth shows a 
hawk-like figure, Horus (?) with a staff in his hand. The 
hieroglyphs, which are crudely moulded, are unintelligible. 

The question arises as to 
whether they are importa- 
tions from Egypt, or native 
Fig. 81. (2:3) Cretan imitations of con- 

temporary Egyptian products. Mr. H. R. Hall, of the British 
Museum, adheres to the former view; Mr. Petrie suggests to 
me that they were made by Greeks in Egypt for export. In 
view of the active commerce between Egypt and the /Egean 
in this era this view seems more probable than the supposition 
that Cretans had established native factories for the manufac- 
ture of glazed objects. 

A similar seal was found in Eleutherna, Crete,^ and 
another in Grave 24, Enkomi, Cyprus.^ Nothing is known 
about the associations of the Eleutherna seal; the Enkomi 
specimen was associated with pieces of an ivory relief and 
with two steatite seals the date of which could not be defi- 
nitely established. In Egypt similar seals have lately been 
found in the excavation of a village at Lisht which has been 
dated to the XX-XXIl dynasties,^ and this seems as close a 
date as can be assigned to them independently. 

3. Beads, PI. XXXV. About 250 beads were recovered 

I'E^. 'Ap;(., 1907, PI. 6, No. 42. 

* Murray, Excavations in Cyprus, p. 21 and PI. 24. 

' I owe this information to Mr. A. M. Lythgoe, of the Metropolitan Museum. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 1 37 

from this tomb. Several were of carnelian, one was of steatite, 
the rest of faience. In the case of these beads it was possible 
to examine their material more closely than that of the seals. 
Some specimens were made of a grayish brown clay and almost 
all traces of a glaze had disappeared; others were made of a 
whitish clay like that of the seals and retained still their coating 
of pale blue glaze. The beads of the grayish brown clay were 
invariably of the plain elongated type. The others were of 
three types: a barrel-shaped ribbed bead, a spherical ribbed 
bead, and a small disk-like bead used seemingly to separate 
the others in stringing. The spherical ribbed bead occurred 
at Amathus, Cyprus, a site which yielded scarabs of the XIX- 
XXI dynasties; it was found also in the Lisht villages of the 
XX and XXI dynasties. 

4. Bronze fibula, PI. XX C. This fibula is asymmetrical 
with a high forearm separating the bow from the catch. The 
arch is adorned with two bead-like protuberances. It corre- 
sponds accordingly to the third type of fibula enumerated in 
Mr. J. L. Myres' classification of Cypriote fibulae.^ In Cyprus 
it was found associated with Late Mycenaean and sub-Myce- 
naean pottery,^ but there is reason to believe that it has also 
been found in later contexts; the record in regard to Tomb 
98 at Kurion is not quite clear, and if we are not mistaken as 
to the type of fibula shown in Dussaud, L'ile de Cbypre, p. 207, 
Fig. 92, we have here an instance of its association with pottery 
of the Graeco-Phoenician type. This type of fibula was found 
at Assarlik again in sub-Mycenaean context^ and at Aigina.'* 

5. Pieces of a bronze fibula similar to the foregoing. 



' Annals of Archaology and Anthropology, Vol. Ill, pp. 138-144. 
* My res, loc. cit., and Murray, op. cit., p. 68 and Figs. 92 and 93. 
'J.H.S.VUl, p. 74, Figs. 17 and 18. 
^ Aigina, PI. 116, No. 14. 



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138 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

6. Larger bronze fibula of the same type as 4, except that 
the catch is in this case narrower at the base. This specimen is 
broken into four pieces but is complete save for the tip of the 
pin and a bit of the clasp. 

7. Pair of bronze tweezers or snuffers. 

8. Gold ring with plain bezel comparable to that found in 
Tomb A at Mouliana.^ Fig. 82. 

9. Bronze fish-hook. 

10. Axe-head of iron, length .22 m., weight 2.475 kilo- 
grams. Like the other objects made of iron, this axe-head 
is so badly corroded as to have lost its original contours. One of 
the cutting edges is also broken. The central hole for insertion 
of a handle is now partly choked with corroded iron and measures 

but .03 m. in diameter. Originally it cannot 

have measured more than .04 m., which seems 

a very small aperture for so heavy an imple- 

Fig. 82 (3 : 5). ment. A carefully selected piece of wood, 

however, might have withstood the strain. 

!!. Iron adze, badly corroded. 

12. Iron spear-end, PI. XXI B. 

13. Curved iron knife with short shaft for insertion in 
handle, PL XXI J. The concave edge is for cutting. 

14. Pieces of slender iron knife, length .131 m., greatest 
width .012 m. 

1 5. Part of iron wedge or chisel. 

In addition to these iron instruments, which were fairly 
well preserved, there were also found masses of corroded iron, 
the fragmentary remains of spear-ends, knives, and swords. 
Mention has already been made of the bits of twelve iron blades 




> 'E<^. *Apx . 1904, p. 37, Fig. 8; cf. also a ring from Praisos, B. S. A. VIII, p. 248, 
FiR. 16. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



139 



found together with a cup inside a burial jar. One of these, 
it was noted, had bronze rivets. As many as twenty-five 
iron weapons, it was estimated, had been buried in the tomb. 
And lastly, in the enumeration of the contents of this tomb 
should be mentioned four large disks of clay and one of stone. 
Fig. 83. Three had rounded tops and resembled great loaves of 
bread; others were flat and one was perforated. Had such 
disks not been found also in the town, they might have been 
regarded as substitute loaves for the use of the dead. Since, 











Fig. 83. Sketch of Clay and Stone Disks found in Chamber-Tomb I (1 : 6). 

however, they appeared also in the Vrokastro houses, it is 
preferable to regard them as heavy lids employed to cover and 
protect the jars in which the ashes of the dead had been laid 
away. 

Chamber-Tomb II. 

This tomb lies about a kilometer southwest of the Karako- 

vilia tomb on the west side of the ridge Mazikhortia. The 

chamber itself is an irregular rectangle measuring 2.04 m. from 

the beginning of the dromos to the rear wall and 1.70 m. in the 



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140 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

opposite direction. The height of the tomb as far as the upper- 
most course preserved was i .09 m. The roof had fallen in. The 
dromos was .47 m. wide; its entire length was not cleared. 

The contents of this tomb were extraordinary; they con- 
sisted of twenty-four skeletons, three vases and one fibula. No 
traces of cremation were detected. The space in the tomb 
seems scant for so many uncremated bodies, but it must be 
remembered that the skeletons were placed in a crouching 
position. The skulls were found ranged in rows around the 
outside of the tomb. The only one which was well enough 
preserved to be measured showed a maximum length of .187 m. 
and a maximum breadth of .123 m. This specimen, however, 
was crushed behind the ears and somewhat flattened behind. 
In addition to the masses of human bones, there were also found, 
and these in .the upper stratum of the tomb, the teeth and bones 
of cattle, indicating, perhaps, that a victim was slain in honor 
of this strange interment, which must have been due to either 
war or pestilence. 

The meagre offerings left with these dead were as follows. 

1. Small jug. Fig. 68 A, decorated with groups of horizontal 
lines and with a row of concentric circles on the shoulder. This 
jug is the prototype of those of Fig. 97. Similar jugs were found 
at Kavousi and Milatos. 

2. Fragments from a bird-shaped vase like that of Fig. 92, i. 

3. Pieces of a badly rotted cup with two vertical handles 
and a single broad band about the body of the vase. 

4. Iron fibula, PI. XIX D, with high symmetrical arch. 
This fibula ad arco, or semicircular fibula, is found over a wide 
area.^ 

* For a similar specimen from Crete, see A. J. A., 1901, p. 136, Fig. 2. Outside of Crete it 
has been found at Ephesus (Hogarth, Epbesus, PI. XVII, Nos. 12 and i)), in Italy (Montelius, 
La civilisation primitive en Italie, Serie A, PI. V, 41 ; id., Serie B, PI. 213, No. 1 ), and in the Cauca- 
sus (Virchow, Das Grdherfeld ton Koban, PI. 1,4). 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. I4I 

Chamber-Tomb III. 

This tomb was the second found on Mazikhortia; it lies 
between the Karakovilia tomb and that just described. It 
measures 1.76 m. from the dromos to the rear wall, and 1.34 m. 
in the opposite direction, and was 1.36 m. deep from the floor 
to the uppermost course preserved. The dromos was .60 m. 
wide; it was faced with rubble walls to a distance of 1.5 1 m. 
The height of the dromos door was .85 m. 

Seven skulls were counted in this tomb. Neither these 
skulls nor any other bones showed traces of burning. There 
was noted, however, adjacent to vases 4, 5, and 6, a few bits of 
charcoal, so that it is possible that these vases should be asso- 
ciated with a cremated interment. The presence of a quantity 
of beach pebbles indicated that the floor of the tomb had been 
prepared with these as in Chamber-Tomb I. The pottery from 
this tomb was as follows. 

1. Small oinochoe of soft yellow clay. On the shoulder, 
which is sharply differentiated from the neck, is a row of con- 
centric semicircles painted in black. Cf. Wace and Thompson, 
Prehistoric Tbessaly, p. 211, Fig. 146 b. 

2. Larger oinochoe, PI. XXVII, 4, of similar but harder clay. 
The shape is both graceful and substantial. The design, painted 
in black, consists of broad bands about the body of the vase and 
a row of concentric circles on the shoulder. The rim, the base 
of the neck, and the handles are also decorated with bands. 
The circles have the look of being drawn with compasses. 
Only the upper halves of them originally showed above the 
top band. 

3. Unpainted flask of coarse red clay, ht. .28 m. 

4. Bowl and cover of finely levigated red clay without 
slip, PL XXVII, 2. The cover is slightly broken and there is 



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142 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

also a piece lacking from the rim. There are holes in both cover 
and rim for tying. The design, like those on vases from Cham- 
ber-Tomb I, produces a maximum of effect with a minimum of 
originality. Between two horizontal bands is painted a row 
of lozenges, the central one filled with checkers, the outer two 
with cross-hatchings. The latter show also a fringe of parallel 
lines like that in PI. XXX 11, 2. A similar bowl and cover were 
found by Mr. Hogarth in Grave 6 of the geometric cemetery 
at Knossos.^ 

5. Hydria of coarse brown clay, ht. 171 m. The pour- 
handle is broken away and fragments from the rim are lacking. 
Traces of bands of black paint remain on the shoulder and the 
foot. 

6. Bowl with two horizontal handles. The decoration is 
confined to two horizontal bands and a waved line on the 
shoulder. 

7. Bowl with vertical handles, of soft buff clay. The neck 
is ornamented with a painted zigzag pattern and the shoulder 
with an incised pattern of lines and dots. 

8. Amphora, Fig. 84, of poor buff clay. Several pieces 
are lacking. The shape is characteristic of the mature geometric 
style. Bands of black are painted on the rim, handles, the line 
where the neck joins the shoulder, the body of the vase, and the 
foot. The main decoration on the shoulder consists of three 
groups of concentric circles, one partly concealed by a band 
of black and a hatched triangle. Cf. Jabrbuch, 1899, p. 40, 
Fig. 22. 

9. Pieces of two cups like those of Fig. 79 and pieces of a 
biigelkanne. 



» B. S. A, VI, p. 84, Fig. 26 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



143 



The objects other than pottery from this tomb were the 
following: 

1 . Bronze disk with two perforations near margin, Fig. 85 N. 

2. Piece of bronze saw, perforated at one end and decorated 
with two lines of punctuated dots.^ 

3. Bit of yellow steatite perforated. 

4. Two pendants of rock crystal, Fig. 85, O and R. 

5. Faience beads, five of the 
small disk type, and one of the elon- 
gated type with plain surface. These 
are entirely similar to the beads from 
Chamber-Tomb I. 

6. Bronze bead. 

7. Small globular bead of stea- 
tite. 

8. Pieces, still adhering to the 
knuckle bones, of two bronze rings 
made of flat bands. 

9. Larger bronze ring. Fig. 85 A. 

10. Bronze bracelet of light wire, 
Fig. 85 E. The bracelet is open; 
one tip is lacking. 

1 1 . Bronze fibula, Fig. 85 M and 
PI. XX F. The type resembles that 
of PI. XX D but the catch is broader, the swelling on the bow 
larger and the bead-like ornaments of the bow are in group of 
threes. This specimen is only slightly asymmetrical. 

12. Bronze fibula of symmetrical semicircular type. Fig. 

85 Q. 




Fig. 84. Amphora (i : 7). 



' Cf. *E<^. "Apx; 1904, p. 31; B'S. A. V\\. p. 135. Fig. 46. 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



13. Pieces of nine straight pins their heads adorned with 
bosses, Fig. 85, G-L. These pins, it is now known, were used 
to fasten garments at the shoulder. For a discussion of the 
method of wearing them and of their history, see Thiersch in 
Aigina, pp. 404-410. 




E. M a 

Fig. 85. Miscellaneous Small Objects from Chamber-Tomb 111. 

Chamber-Tomb IV on Amigthali. 

This tomb was more irregular in shape than those just 
described. It is further distinguished from the others by the 
fact that the h'ntel consisted of two large stones 1.44 m. in 
length, .40 m. in height, and .30 m. in breadth. The greatest 
length of the chamber itself is 1.80 m., width 1.545 m., height 
as far as preserved, 1.15 m. The entire roof had fallen. Cre- 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. I45 

mation, not inhumation, was practiced in this tomb. At the 
right of the dromos door were the remains of a large unpainted 
jar of coarse clay containing a skull and bones that showed 
clear traces of burning. In a biigelkanne, the side of which 
was broken away, there were also found burned bones, but 
this may have been due to chance. Bits of bones, however, 
were noted in another small unpainted jug, .18 m. high. Bones 
which showed signs of cremation were also found scattered 
about in the tomb. Of inhumation without cremation there 
were no traces, although it should be stated that the difference 
is slight between the bones of unburned bodies and those of 
bodies the flesh of which has been burned away. In cases where 
bones of cremated bodies were not gathered into vases, their 
appearance might be quite similar to that of the bones of 
unburned bodies the original position of which had been dis- 
turbed by the collapse of a roof. 

Unfortunately the pottery from this tomb was of a very 
indeterminate character. The majority of these vases were 
entirely unpainted. Many were of a coarse clay which had 
rotted to mud before the tomb was opened. Most of them 
lay opposite the door; those which could be preserved were 
as follows. 

1. Oinochoe of coarse greenish clay, ht. ,18 m., Fig. 86 E. 
The decoration consists of horizontal bands and of a group of 
narrower vertical bands below the spout, connected by slanting 
lines. The shape is good and the decoration, in spite of its 
simplicity, effective. 

2. Unpainted bowl of pinkish clay, ht. .09 m., diam. .177 m. 
The shape seems to be modeled after that of stone vases. Fig. 
86 G. 

3. Krater with horizontal handles, ht. .151 m. Piece from 



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146 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



the rim is lacking. Black stripes are painted around the body 
of the vase and zigzag pattern on the shoulder/ Fig. 86 D. 

4. Triple vase of coarse red clay, Fig. 86 F. This very 
unusual vase is made up of three cups to each of which a leg 
and handle are attached; one handle is missing.^ 

5. Unpainted bugelkanne, ht. 152 m., Fig. 88 C. 

6. Pieces of two other bugelkannen. 




Fig. 86. Pottery from Chamber-Tomb IV (2 : 9). 



7. Small cup with flaring sides and two horizontal handles, 
ht. .067 m., diam. .107 m., Fig. 86 A. 

8. Small bowl, Fig. 86 B, decorated with horizontal and 
vertical bands. 



' This vase may be compared to one found in a grave at Rakhmani, Thessaly. Wace and 
Thompson, Prehistoric Thessaly, p. 47, Fig. 23 e. 

2 The vase at the right of Fig. 26, B. S. A. VI, p. 84, from Knossos cemetery, Tomb 6, is 
apparently analogous. Cf. also Furtwangler and Loschcke, op. cit., PI. Ill, 23, VII. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



147 



The other objects found in this tomb were as follows. 

1. Bronze pin, Fig. 87 K. 

2. Perforated steatite disk ornamented with crudely incised 
design of animals, Fig. 87 G. 

3. Similar undecorated disk. 

4. Heavy bronze ring. Fig. 87 C. 

5. Two slender bronze rings, adhering to one another, 
.018 m. diam. 



■ — * — - — -I — I- ^ 





K 

Fig. 87. Miscellaneous Small Objects from Chamber-Tomb fV (i : 2). 

6. Whetstone, quadrangular and tapering, with string holes 
at either end,^ Fig. 87 A. 

7. Part of amygdaloid carnelian sealstone. The design 
indicates the last stages of Minoan glyptic art. 
Either the sealstone itself or else the stereotyped 
design survived from the preceding era, Figs. 87 E ^*^ ^ 
and 88. 




Sealstone 

(2 : 3 ) 



' Cf. My res-Rich ter, Cyprus Museum Catalog, p. 52, 481-487. 



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148 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

8. Porcelain ribbed bead, Fig. 87 D. This type, of bead 
which was conspicuous by its absence in Chamber-Tomb I, 
enjoyed a wide popularity in the Late Mycenaean period. It was 
found at Mycenae, at Palaiokastro, and in the Zafer Papoura 
cemetery,^ and lately by Mr. Stais at Sounion. 

9. Eight beads of the small disk-like type like those in 
Fig. 85. 

10. Faience seal like that of Fig. 81, 2, but slightly smaller, 
PI. XXXV, upper right hand seal. 

11. Globular bead of iridescent glass. Glass, it is now 
known, makes its appearance at the end of the Minoan age. 
It was found, for example, in the Zafer Papoura tombs, op. cit., 
p. 72. 

12. Cylindrical steatite bead. 

13. Bronze fibula of twisted wire, Fig. 87 B and PI. XIX C. 
This specimen is complete, although it is slightly bent so that 
it is no longer symmetrical. This type of fibula, of which several 
specimens were recovered at Vrokastro, is found over a large 
area; it occurred at Kavousi, //. J. /I., 1901, p. 136, Fig. 2; at 
Aigina, op. cit., PI. 1 16, No. i ; at the Argive Heraeum, op. cit., 
II, PI. LXXXV, No. 830; at Thera, op. cit., II, p. 300, abb. 
489a; at Koban, op. cit., PL i, 3; and in Italy, Montelius, 
op. cit., serie A, PI. V, 40, and serie B, PI. 213, No. 2. 

14. Similar fibula with part of pin broken. 

15. Large bronze fibula of the same type as that of PI. 
XIX B but larger. Fig. 87 I. 

16. Bronze fibula. Fig. 87 H. This specimen resembles 
that of PI. XX, C and D, but the bow is symmetrical, the arch 
higher, and the central swelling larger. 



» Evans, op. cit., p. 71, Fig. 81 a. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 1 49 

Chamber-Tomb V. 
After the excavation of the tombs described, no more of 
this type were discovered until the last days of the campaign, 
when trials were made of the lower foothills west of Vrokastro. 
Here, on the slope Kopranes, three more were brought to light. 
The first of these was roughly circular in plan, its greatest 
width 1.66 m., length 2.09 m.; the width of the dromos was 
64 m., its height 1.38 m. This tomb had evidently been rifled; 
not only were there vases parts of which could not be recovered, 
but the bones were scattered about. There is also a village 
tradition that the tomb had been plundered within the memory 
of men living. In the dromos were the fragmentary remains 
of a pithos; it had been lying on its side and had doubtless 
contained a burial. The bones from this tomb showed clear 
traces of burning; one skull was blackened, and many of the 
bones were rendered brittle by fire. The pottery from this 
tomb was unusually free from geometric influences. It is as 
follows. 

1. Large biigelkanne. Fig. 89 I, of good bufi" clay covered 
with a slip which has now, however, largely chipped away. 
The specimen has no air-hole and has a large flat base quite 
unlike the slender, tapering feet of geometric biigelkannen. 
Horizontal bands decorate the body of the vase. On the 
shoulder is an irregular hatched area fringed below with a 
row of curls which gives the ornament some resemblance to an 
octopus. 

2. Flask of good clay only slightly coarser than that of the 
above, with slip. Fig. 89 G. One handle and several pieces are 
missing. The ornamentation is confined to four concentric 
circles and a small knob on either face. 

3. Smaller flask of similar clay and with similar slip. 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



Fig. 89 F. This specimen has but one handle and only one 
face is preserved. 

4. Dipper with handle in shape of bird's head, Fig. 89 D 
and Fig. 90. The clay is buff and has no slip. It is incised with 
horizontal and zigzag lines and the whole except the base and 
handle has been dipped in a black wash. The specimen is 




Fig. 89. Pottery from Chamber-Tomb V (i : 5). 

intended to hang, not to stand. The handle is decorated with 
slanting lines and the head in which it terminates is an effective 
bit of modeling. 

5. Two-handled kylix on tall bulging foot. Fig. 89 A. One 
handle is missing. The black paint which is used for covering 
the interior of the vase as well as for the design is badly worn. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



151 



The shape is hardly more than a caricature of the graceful 
kylikes of the best Late Minoan III style. 

6. Similar kylix with exactly similar design, Fig. 89 C. 
The paint, however, is redder. 

7. Small oinochoe of poor clay, Fig. 89 B. The design con- 
sists of horizontal bands and of a row of triangles on the shoulder. 

8. Biigelkanne, with high neck and spout, sharply outlined 
shoulder and small foot. Fig. 89 E. The usual air-hole occurs. 
The decoration consists of hori- 
zontal bands and various com- 
binations of slanting lines. 

9. Biigelkanne, correspond- 
ing to the preceding, except that 
the decoration in this case in- 
cludes hatched triangles. Fig. 
89 H. 

10. Pieces of three cups like 
that of Fig. 79. 

In addition to pottery this 
tomb yielded: 

1. Iron knife, PI. XXI A, broken into four pieces. The 
tang continues the outer edge of the blade. The cutting edge 
shows long use. Cf. Prehistoric Tombs, p. 22, Fig. 13d. 

2. Bronze earring, .023 m. diam., with curved tips which 
clasp, Fig. 91. 




Fig. 90. Clay Dipper (i : 2). 



Similar earring with ends broken. 
Bronze ring, inner diam. .018 m. 
Faience beads of small disk-like 



00 

Fig. 91. Bronze Earrings 

(1:2). 



3- 
4- 
5- 
type. 

6. Obsidian chips. This was the only tomb in which 
obsidian occurred. 

7. Bronze fibula of twisted wire type like that of PI. XIX C. 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



Chamber-Tomb VI. 

The second chamber-tomb found on Kopranes had been 
partly demolished in recent times by the construction of a 
terrace wall. Remains of three skeletons were found; they 
showed no distinct traces of burning. The pottery resembles 
closely that found by Mr. Hogarth in the Knossos graves. It 
is as follows. 

I. Large flaring bowl, Fig. 92. The inside is covered with 
black paint; the outside is unpainted. The handles have 




Fig. 92. Vases from Chamber-Tomb VI (i : 5). 

upright pieces connecting the horizontal loops with the rim. 
A similar bowl was found recently in the upper stratum at 
Tylissos. Cf. also, B. S. A. VI, p. 83, Fig. 25. 

2. Bird-shaped vase with three knobs for feet and a handle 
above. Fig. 92, i . The vase is of poor clay and the design badly 
worn. It consists of bands and waved lines following the con- 
tours of the vase. The margin of the design is in one place 
treated in the old Minoan fashion which consists of drawing 
a straight and an undulating line and filling the intermediate 
space with black. Cf., e. g., Sphoungaras, p. 67, Fig. 39. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. I 53 

3. Similar vase less well preserved, Fig. 92, 2. Little 
remains of the design, which contained, however, a good deal 
of cross-hatching. 

4. Biigelkanne of geometric type with air-hole and knob 
on false spout. Design, hatched triangles. 

5. A bird-shaped vase resembling an askos, Fig. 92, 5, and 
constituting a type intermediate between that of Fig. 92, 1 and 
that of a biigelkanne. The decoration consists of horizontal 
bands and hatched triangles on its upper surface. Cf. A. J. A., 
1901, PI. I, lower row, extreme right. 

Beside pottery this tomb contained the following objects. 

1. Bronze ring, .013 m. diam. 

2. Coiled iron ring, .013 m. diam. 

3. Iron knife-end with four bronze rivets in the tang, 
PI. XXI F. 

4. Large bronze fibula with high forearm, PI. XIX H. 
The bow is quadrangular in section and unadorned. The fore- 
arm is sufficiently high to enclose folds of thick drapery. 

Chamber-Tomb VII. 
The last of the chamber-tombs to be described and the third 
found on Kopranes was well built and well preserved, but con- 
tained remarkably little. Only a few bits of bones, apparently 
unburned, were found. The height of the tomb as far as its 
roof was preserved was 413 m.; its greatest length, 2.24 m. and 
width, 1.59 m. The dromos was .67 m. high and .745 m. wide. 
The tomb contained five vases as follows. 

1 . Cup of the usual geometric type. Cf . Fig. 79. 

2. Three biigelkannen, decorated with hatched triangles 
and provided with air-holes and knobs on their false spouts. 
Fig. 93- 



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154 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



3. Small jug, .126 m. high, decorated with hatched triangles 
and a waved line, Fig. 93, 1 . 

Two Other objects from this tomb were the following. 

1. Bronze ring with three coils still adhering to the finger- 
bone. 

2. Iron spear-end, .215 m. long. 




F'g- 93- Vases from Chamber-Tomb VII (about i : 4). 

B. Bone-Enclosures. 
The type of burial to be considered next is less familiar.^ 
It was of more frequent occurrence in the Vrokastro cemeteries 
than any other one type. The first tombs of this type that came 
to light were discovered on the lower slopes of Karakovilia while 
the workmen were ranging about in search of other chamber- 
tombs. They looked at first to be the remains of very small 
houses, but their very shallow depth, their small size, and the 
constant appearance of bones soon precluded this idea, and 



'Apparently the burials mentioned by Mrs. Hawesin A. J. A., 1901, p. 154 were of this 



type. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. I 55 

convinced us that we had to do with bone-enclosures comparable 
in type to those of the Middle Minoan 1 period discovered 
by the British excavators at Palaiokastro.^ A typical bone- 
enclosure is shown in Fig. 94. It will be seen to consist of a 
series of small and irregularly shaped rooms, separated from one 
another by low walls. The bones found within the small rooms 
usually bore unmistakable traces of cremation, and the pottery 
buried with them was, generally speaking, of a later type than 
that found in the chamber-tombs. 




Fig. 94. Sketch and Ground Plan of Bone- Enclosure No. 3 (Ground Plan i : 250). 

Bone-Enclosure 1 on Karakovilia. 

The first bone-enclosure to be described was found on 
Karakovilia due south of Chamber-Tomb 1. It consisted of 
three adjoining compartments all of which contained bones, 
which were clearly charred. Many bits of charred wood were 
also noted; in fact there was so deep and extended a deposit 
of black earth as to suggest the possibility of cremation having 
taken place on the spot. Of the three rooms, the central was 
the largest; it measured 2.10 by 1.8 m. and was, on an average, 
.45 m. deep. The other chambers measured, that on the east, 
1.42 by 1.70 m. and was .45 m. deep; that on the west, 1.55 

»fl. 5./f. VIII, p. 291, Fig. 5. 



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156 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

by .74 m. and was .24 m. deep. In all three rooms were found 
potsherds in abundance. The painted fabrics came largely from 
bowls and jars like those in Figs. 60 and 68. The eastern- 
most room contained nothing but potsherds; the central room 
yielded the following objects. 

1. Iron sword, PI. XXI E, badly damaged by oxidation. 

2. Three iron spear-ends, PI. XXI C, D, and H. These, 
with the preceding, were found piled criss-cross. 

3. Many bits of thin bronze plate and wire. 

4. Crystal button. Pieces of other buttons were noted. 
They had no perforations and were beveled on the surface only. 
They may have been used for inlay and have once adorned 
the box to which the foregoing bits of bronze also belonged. 

5. Pieces from an iron fibula overlaid with gold-leaf. 
This specimen was of the same type as that in PI. XIX D. 

In the adjoining Room B were found these objects. 

1. Beaded bronze fibula of the type of PI. XX B, the coil, 
pin, and part of clasp lacking. This type of fibula, conspicuous 
by its absence from the chamber-tombs, was frequently found 
in the bone-enclosures. It may be, morphologically, a develop- 
ment from that of PI. XX C, D, and F, or, as Mr. Hogarth^ 
suggests, the beaded ornaments may have replaced real orna- 
ments strung on the bow. The type is well known and occurred 
at Ephesus,^ at the Argive Heraeum,^ at Olympia,^ and at 
Aigina.^ 

2. Pair of bronze tweezers or snuffers, .06 m. long. 

3. Bronze pin, intact but bent, Fig. 58 D. 

* Ephesus, p. 148. 
Wp.cit, PI. XVII, 3. 
*0p. cii., II, PI. 86, Nos. 877 and 878. 
*Olympia, Tafelband, IV, PI. 22, No. 368. 

^Op. cii., PI. 116, 20 and 21. Cf. also Bohlau, /4us ionischen undiialischen Nekropolen, 
PI. XV, 10. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. I 57 

Bone-Enclosure II. 

Only a few meters southwest of the bone-enclosure just 
described, a second was located which was found to consist, 
not like the foregoing of a row of rooms, but of a single chamber. 
Its isolation and its shape, which was very irregular, seemed due 
to the fact that live rock crops out on every side of this room, 
so that only in this one spot was the soil sufficiently deep for a 
grave. The bits of bones recovered from this chamber were few 
in number, but showed clear traces of burning. They lay loose 
in the earth without being enclosed in jars. No pottery was 
found save a few sherds which were either unpainted or showed 
variations of the meander motive typical of the developed 
geometric style. 

The objects other than pottery found were as follows. 

1. Iron sword, 51 m. long. Three pieces were recovered 
which completes the specimen save for a bit from the handle 
and the tip. The shape of the blade, the order of the rivets 
and the form of the tang correspond closely to those of the sword 
from Bone-Enclosure I. 

2. Large bronze fibula of the geometric type with hollow 
bow, PL XX H. Parts of the clasp and pin are missing and the 
parts preserved contain several breaks. This fibula is note- 
worthy both for its size and form. Ukc the asymmetrical 
fibulae of PI. XIX B and H, it was designed to hold thick folds 
of heavy material, but unlike these it is symmetrical, for the 
clasp is as high as the forearm. The bow has the shape of a 
spoon. It is this type of fibula which has large clasps decorated 
with geometric ornament.^ Undecorated examples like this 

* See, e.g., Annali, 1880, Tav. d'agg. G; Jabrbucb, 1888, p. 362d and 363c; *E^. 'Ap;(., 
1892, PI. XI, I and 2; /Ircb. Zeit., 1884, PI. 9, 3, and compare the list given in y4tben. Mitt. Xll, 
p. 14. 



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158 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

specimen have been found at Rhodes,^ at Thera,^ at Aigina,^ 
at the Argive Heraeum,* and at Olympia.^ 

3. Smaller bronze fibula of similar type, PI. XX E. This 
specimen is of very light bronze and is badly broken. Most 
of the clasp is missing. The spoon-shaped bar lies in the same 
plane as the clasp, a variation on the preceding type which was 
perhaps brought about out of consideration for the wearer's 
comfort. 

4. Still smaller iron fibula of the same type as 2, PI. XX I. 

5. Beaded bronze fibula, PI. XX F, complete save for a 
part of the clasp. This type corresponds to the beaded fibula 
from Bone-Enclosure I, except that the central protuberance is 
larger than the others. A similar fibula was found at Praisos,* 
associated with pottery of a fully developed geometric style. 
It occurs also among the fibulae from Aigina and from Olympia, 

6. Pieces of three other fibulae of similar type. 

7. Bronze fibula, PL XX J, coil, pin, and part of clasp mis- 
sing. This pin presents another variation of the beaded type. 
It resembles the pin of PI. XX B, except that the beads are here 
separated by smaller disk-like protuberances. 

8. Lentoid agate sealstone, sealing surface damaged. Fig. 
95. The design consists of a group of fern-like devices 
springing from a horizontal marking and separated 
from one another by oval depressions. In the exergue 
is a double zigzag. The design shows no originality 

and dates from the same decadent period of gem-cutting as 
that shown in Fig. 88. 

* Zeii.fiir Eth., p. 215, Fig. 17; cf. also Schumacher, Sammlung Antiker Bron^en, PL 1, No. i. 
2 Op. CI/., 1 1, p. 300, Abb. 498p. 

^Op.cit, PI. 116, No. 3. 

*0p. cit, II, PI. LXXXVI, No. 857. 

* Olympia, Tafelband IV, PI. XXI, Nos. 347 and 350, and PI. XXII. No. 363. 
«fl. 5./f. XII, p. 33, Fig. 10. 




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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. I 59 

9. Two bronze fibulae. They are symmetrical and similar 
in form to the beaded fibulae, but their bows are plain. 

10. Two pendants of rock crystal. 

11. Two glass beads, globular. 

12. Faience bead of small disk-like shape. 

Bone-Enclosure 111. 
This is the bone-enclosure a diagrammatical sketch of which 
is shown in Fig. 94. It will be seen 
to consist of four adjacent compart- 
ments; in only two of these was 
found anything beside potsherds. In 
Room A, that furthest to the west, 
was found the amphora described 
below. In its mouth was a cover 
still adhering so tightly to the jar 
that it could be removed only by 
soaking in water. Above the am- 
phora was a cup of coarse clay; 
inside it were charred bones. We 

t t ^1 r 1 r Fig. 96. Amphora and Cover (1 : 6). 

have here, therefore, a clear case of 

the burial of cremated remains in jars. In Room C were found 
other charred bones, but these were apparently buried in the 
earth without being enclosed in jars. The bones from the 
other two rooms were too few to indicate in what manner 
they had been interred. Potsherds from all four rooms were of 
the same period as the amphora. 

The amphora and cover of soft pink clay are shown in Fig. 
96. The painted decoration is nearly worn away on one side. 
It consists, as usual, of horizontal bands about the lower part 
of the vase and of panels of geometric ornament on the shoulder. 




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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



The neck is also painted with lines, one of which is waved. The 
cover has a hatched design in the center and a row of quirks 
around the margin. 

Besides the amphora were found an unpainted cup of coarse 
clay, found above the amphora, pieces of glass beads like those 
mentioned before, bits of iron pin like that of Fig. 58 C, 

In Room C were found pieces of a heavy bronze fibula like 
that of PI. XX J. 




A B C 

Fig. 97. Small Jugs from Bone- Enclosure IV <about 4 : 9). 

Bone-Enclosure IV. 

This enclosure consisted of three rooms and corresponded 
in size and arrangement to Bone-Enclosure 1. All three rooms 
yielded potsherds in abundance; fifty per cent of these were 
from small jugs of light clay like those of Fig. 97, the rest of 
larger jars painted and unpainted. The small vases may have 
been buried inside the necks of the larger ones.^ All bones 
were burned. Two of the three rooms contained nothing 
beside potsherds; the third yielded the vases enumerated below. 

»Cf. Thera II, p. 58. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. l6l 

1. Small unpainted jug of soft buff clay, ht. .065 m. 

2. Small jug with flat base. Fig. 97 C. The clay is soft as 
in the preceding and the painted surface badly worn. The 
lower part of the vase is ornamented with horizontal bands, the 
shoulder with a row of finely hatched triangles.^ 

3. Small jug, Fig. 97 B, foot missing. The shape shows 
several variations on the foregoing; the neck is longer, the 
handle is attached not to the rim but to the neck, the body is 
pear-shaped, and, if M. Gilli^ron's restoration is correct, the 
vase rests upon a foot. The decoration consists of horizontal 
bands between which, on the shoulder, is a row of concentric 
circles, and in the central zone, vertical rows of arrow ornaments.^ 

4. Small jug. Fig. 97 a, similar to the preceding in type. 
The shoulder is adorned with a series of volute ornaments which 
herald a change from the mathematical style of the geometric 
period. This ornament may be compared with that on a Cretan 
jug of the orientalizing style in the Berlin Museum, Athen. 
Mitt., 1897, PI. 6. 

Counterparts of these vases exist in the Candia Museum; 
they have been enumerated and described by Professor Zahn.^ 
Outside of Crete, this class of delicate little vases has been 
found in geometric tombs on Thera.^ Professor DragendoriT 
regarded some of these as Cretan importations, others as imita- 
tions of Cretan prototypes. He suggests^ that these jugs may 
mark the beginning of orientalizing influence, a suggestion sup- 
ported by the decoration of the vase in Fig. 97 A. They are 



* Cf . Tbera II, p. 311, Ahh. 4991, and two jugs in the Berlin Museum fiir Volkerskunde, 
Jahrhuch, 1900, p. 53, Figs. 1 1 1 and 1 12. 

2 These do not appear in the illustration. 

* See Thera II, p. 179, footnote. 

* Op. cit., II, p. 311; Abb. 499, a and c; p. 58, Abb. 200. 

* Loc. cit., p. 312; footnote, 27. 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



certainly one of the latest fabrics found at Vrokastro. Professor 
DragendorfT places them at the end of the eighth or the beginning 
of the seventh century b. c.^ 

In addition to these vases, this bone-enclosure yielded two 
bronze pins, to one of which a bit of wire was attached. This 
is one of several instances in which these pins were found in 




F'g- 98. Jar from Bone- Enclosure V ( 



pairs. The piece of wire must be a remnant of the necklace or 
string of ornaments which passed from shoulder to shoulder and 
was attached to the heads of these pins. Such a necklace is 
clearly shown on the Francois vase.^ 

* Loc. cit., p. 321. 

^ Cf. also Thiersch, loc. cit., where a list of vases depicting the use of such pins is given. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROK ASTRO. 1 63 

Bone-Enclosure V. 

This, like Bone-Enclosure II, consisted of but a single room. 
Its contents had apparently been disturbed; only a few bits of 
bones were found. The objects with them were the following, 

1 . Part of iron blade. 

2. Pieces of coarse unpainted jug. 

3. Jar with horizontal handles. Fig. 98. The clay is yellow 
and the design-paint reddish. The decoration within the 
panel on the shoulder consists of two hatched butterfly orna- 
ments so arranged against pairs of vertical lines as to give the 
effect of a Minoan double-axe pattern. 

Bone-Enclosure VI. 

This bone-enclosure was only a few meters from Chamber- 
Tomb II. It differed from those hitherto described in that the 
rooms were not arranged in a single row but were irregularly 
placed. The rooms were shallow and were themselves of irregu- 
lar outline. In Room 2 of this group was a pithos on its side 
containing the unburned bones of a child, which shows that in 
this period when cremation and interment in bone-enclosures were 
the rule, it was still the custom to bury children, uncremated, 
in jars. No indication of another burial in this room was 
found. In front of the pithos was noted a large flat stone which 
had apparently served as a lid to the pithos, but which had 
fallen from its original vertical position. In all the other com- 
partments were found many bones, which, though they were 
not blackened as was the case in other enclosures, were, in 
view of their disordered arrangement and fragmentary condi- 
tion, to be attributed to cremated burials. The contents of 
this group of rooms were as follows. 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



Room 1. I. Piece of a beaded fibula, Fig. 100 B. 
2. Iron button with bronze center. 

Room II. In the southwest corner of this compartment, 
inside the pithos already described, seven articles were found. 

1. Jug of soft clay, Fig. 99 C. The lower part was once 
entirely covered with black paint. A row of cross-hatched 
triangles with three horizontal bands complete the decoration. 

2. Hydria, of somewhat better clay, with two low hori- 




Fig. 99. Vases from Bone- Enclosure VI (i : 5). 

zontal handles. Fig. 99 B. The geometric ornament on the 
shoulder corresponds almost exactly to that on a jar from the 
town, shown in PI. XXVII, 3. 

3. Small oinochoe of similar clay, decorated with a waved 
line on the neck and a row of checkered triangles on the shoulder, 
Fig. 99 a. 

4. Flaring bowl. Fig. 99 D. As usual, the lower part of the 
vase is ornamented with horizontal stripes; the upper part 
shows concentric segments, geometrically exact. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



165 



5. Bronze fibula of symmetrical type, Fig. 100 C, like that 
of PI. XX C. 

6. Bronze fibula of similar type, except that the bow is more 
angular, Fig. 100 A. 

7. Crystal bead, hexagonal in section. 

Room III. Iron spear-end, broken in three pieces, length 
.122 m. 

Room IV. Iron fibula of a type similar to that of PI. XX I, 
but the bow is solid, not hollow. 




Fig. 100. Iron Spear-end and Fibulae from Bone- Enclosure VI ( 



Bone-Enclosure VII. 

This enclosure was found on Kopranes, not far from 
Chamber-Tomb V. It consisted of five compartments unsystem- 
atically grouped. The compartments were of irregular shapes 
and were placed at various levels on account of the uneven 
surface of the soil. The average depth of the compartments 
was .60 m. In one compartment was found on its side a pithos 
containing the unburned remains of a child. No objects were 
found with it. In a second compartment were bones which 
showed no certain traces of burning, but which, on the other 
hand, displayed no orderly arrangement indicating a primary 
burial. With them were found the following objects. 



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l66 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

1. Flask of Cypriote type like that of Fig. 57 E. The sur- 
face is badly worn but shows traces of concentric circles of 
varying width and of central protuberances. 

2. Bronze fibula, PI. XIX G. This pin differs from those 
already described. It is not a symmetrical pin as at first appears; 
on the contrary, the end of the bow proper is marked by a small 
protuberance, the outside covering of which is several times 
slit open. The rest of the pin, which is thinner and flatter, 
belongs to the clasp. 

3. Piece of bronze saw, see p. 143. 

4. Iron knife, .07 m. long. 

Bone-Enclosure VIII. 
This enclosure contained two compartments, the walls of 
one of which were partly broken away. The other compartment 
measured 2.44 by 1.31 m. and varied from .30 to .77 m. in depth. 
The bones were unmistakably charred. The contents of the 
compartment which was intact were as follows. 

1. Bronze fibula of type similar to that of PI. XX B, pin 
and clasp broken. 

2. Large fibula of plain symmetrical flat type with plain 
flat bow, complete except for pin, PI. XIX E. 

3. Cylindrical bead of thin pale gold with repouss^ linear 
design. 

4. Globular bead of rock crystal. 

5. Cylindrical steatite bead. 

In the other compartment, the walls of which had been 
partly destroyed, were found the following objects. 

1. Bronze fibula similar to that of PI. XIX D, except 
that the flat bow is in this case in a difl'erent plane from that of 
the catch, PI. XIX F. 

2. Pieces of small iron saw. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 167 

Bone-Enclosure IX. 

This consisted of but a single room, and that partly 
destroyed. The signs of cremation were clear, one skull being 
badly charred. The only objects found in this enclosure were 
parts of two iron knives. 

Bone-Enclosure X. 

This enclosure, which, again, consisted of a single room, 
contained bones burned to charcoal. With them occurred: 

1 . Part of fibula of twisted wire, type like that of PI. X I X C. 

2. Fragments of a jar of coarse clay, decorated from base 
to rim with horizontal stripes. 

3. Unpainted bowl. 

Bone-Enclosure XI. 

This enclosure contained bones burned to charcoal. Beside 
these bones there occurred the following objects. 

1. Part of bronze beaded fibula like that of PI. XX G. 

2. Two bronze pins like those of Fig. 58 C. One of these 
has an eye just above the point; the other is broken in the 
middle of a similar eye. The presence of such eyes suggests 
that a band of ornaments was suspended not only from the 
heads of a pair of pins as on the Francois vase, but also that 
a second string of beads and pendants was held at a lower level 
by the eyes of such pins, although it is also possible that the 
string passed through these eyes was intended merely to hold 
the pins in position.^ 



* For other pins with eyes, see Murray, op. cit., pp. 19 and 20, and PI. VI 1 1 ; Cyprus Museum 
Catalog, PI. Ill, pp. 591 and 594; and Aigina, pp. 413 and 415. 



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i68 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



Bone-Enclosure XII. 

This enclosure consists of a group of rooms irregularly 
orientated and shaped. They contained bones blackened by 
burning and also the following objects. 

Room I. I. Large open-mouthed jar, Fig. loi. Hori- 
zontal bands adorn the body of the vase; on the shoulder are 
painted three zigzag lines with checker pattern between them. 
The shape is similar to that of the vase in Fig. 6i. 




Fig. loi. Krater from Bone-Enclosure XII (i : 6). 

2. Pieces of seven cups ornamented with horizontal bands 
and comparable to that from Courtes, shown in A, J. A., 1901, 
PI. IX, No. 17. 

3. Amphora, Fig. 102 B, the decoration consists of hori- 
zontal bands and a row of concentric circles, two of which in 
each group are separated by 'checkers. 

4. Amphora of similar shape with double handles. Fig. 
102 A. The panel of decoration on the shoulder is filled, 
strangely enough, with a scale pattern which is entirely Myce- 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



169 



naean in character. The shape of the vase, on the contrary, 
is geometric. A better example could hardly be found of the 
intermingling of Mycenaean and geometric characteristics. 

Room II. Bow of bronze fibula with incised lines. It 
is like one in the National Museum, Athens, from Dodona. 




Fig. 102. Two Amphorae from Bone-Enclosure XII (i : 8). 

Room III. Large beaded fibula, PI. XX A. 

Room IV. Jug of coarse clay with two horizontal handles 
and a vertical pour-handle. The lower part of the vase is 
decorated with closely ordered horizontal stripes; the upper 
part shows triangular motives. On the handle is a herring- 
bone pattern. Fig. 103. 



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lyo 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



In connection with these bone-enclosures it will be conve- 
nient to describe a building, the plan and photograph of which 
are shown in Fig. 104 and PI. XXIV 2. It is conspicuous both 
by reason of its regular plan and its isolation. The fact that 
it was found in the neighborhood of bone-enclosures suggests 
that it might have been used in connection with the ritual of 
burial or cremation. The absence of charred remains pre- 
cludes the idea that it was the place where cremation actually 
took place. On the other hand, the discovery close at hand 

of broken terra cotta figurines implies 
that the building contained a shrine. 

It will be seen from the photograph 
of PI. XXIV, 2, that the upper surface 
of the wall is unusually even; evidently 
the upper courses had been built of brick 
as in early Greek buildings. Further 
evidence for brick construction was 
forthcoming in four blocks of lime- 
stone which showed one or more care- 
fully dressed surfaces. These had ap- 
parently served as jambs for the doors at either end of the 
building. A rebate in the surface of the block shown in 
PI. XXI 1 1, 2, seems to show that the door-posts had been 
made of wood. 

The only two objects found in this room were a table of 
offerings and a krater. 

I. Clay table of offerings. Fig. 105. The pieces of this 
table were found scattered throughout the building. Not all 
were recovered, several pieces of the cross supports being lack- 
ing. The object had been carefully repaired in antiquity to 
judge by the rivet holes which were noted in several places 




Fig. 103. Hydria (i 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



171 



on the legs. On the top of the table was painted a large 
rosette.^ 

The other object from this building is the krater of Fig. 
106. Several pieces and most of the foot are lacking. This 
vase is an example of the fully developed Dipylon style. Almost 
its entire surface is covered with black paint; the only excep- 
tions are three groups of narrow bands about the body, and 





LMCTCIO 



Fig. 104. Plan of House Adjacent to Bone- Enclosures. 

the background of the closely ornamented panel on the shoulder. 
The double handles and the ribbed foot are both characteristic 
of this class of geometric vases. The clay of which this vase 



* It is possible that the geometric sherds mentioned on p. 243 of B. S. A.VIW "from plates 
with low vertical sides, decorated on the exterior with large rosettes" may be from similar tables 
rather than from plates. I know of no clay tables analogous to this specimen; clay tripods or 
vase supports with openwork bases are fairly frequent, see B. S. A. VIM p. 250, Fig. 21, and 
Annals 0/ Archaohiy, 1 1 1. PI. XXIX, No. 20. and 'E<^. *Apx., 1898. PI. 4, No. 3. 



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172 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



is made is the hard reddish clay very similar to that of the 
bowl in PL XXVI.^ 

The fragments of figurines found in the vicinity of this 
building were a part of a human figure, a part of a duck and 
a part of a figurine of a horse. 

PiTHOS-BURIALS. 

Burials in jars have already been noted in connection 
with the Vrokastro houses, the chamber-tombs, and the bone- 




Fig. 105. Clay Table from Building Adjacent to Bone-Enclosures (1 : $). 

enclosures. Three other instances of such burials in jars remain 
to be enumerated, which were unassociated with either tombs 
or houses. Two were located on one of the eastern spurs of 
Vrokastro, to which the natives have given the name, Khavga 
(Xavya); in a circular pit cut from the hard white soil. One 
pithos was on its side, and contained the unburned bones and 
the teeth of a child. The mouth of the jar was closed with two 

^ For a ribbed base with rectangular perforations see, e. g., a krater from Melos published in 
Jabrbucb, 1899, Vol. XIV, p. 34, Fig. 1 1, and ibid., p. 80, Fig. 33. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



173 



large disks of stone like those found in the Vrokastro houses 
and in Chamber-Tomb I. The other jar appeared at a lower 
level and, like Minoan burial jars, was inverted and wedged 
into position by large stones. The bones inside were those 
of an adult; they showed no traces of burning. The only 
object found with this burial was the biigelkanneof PI. XXVII, i. 




Fig. 106. Geometric Krater from Building Adjacent to Bone- Enclosures 
(about I : 4). 

It has the usual air-hole on the shoulder and knob on the false 
spout. Its decoration presents close analogies to that of the 
pottery from Chamber-Tomb I ; the fern-like fringe on the 
hatched triangles and the solidly black triangle are both char- 
acteristic of the earlier phase of Cretan geometric style, of 
which the best examples were afforded by the pottery from 
Chamber-Tomb I. 



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174 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

The other jar-burial was found adjacent to Chamber- 
Tomb IV on Amigdali. The pithos was on its side and con- 
tained the unburned remains of an adult. One cup and two 
bits of perforated steatite made up the burial gifts. 

Interment Rock-Shelter. 
Lastly, in enumerating the various types of interments 
found on Vrokastro, mention should be made of a burial under 
an overhanging ledge of rock which runs along the southern 
edge of the Karakovilia slope. Several skeletons had been 
interred here; that they belonged to the geometric period 
was certain, for geometric sherds and a small unpainted jug 
like that of Fig. 99 C were found with them.^ 



*Cf. Mr. Hogarth's brief description of geometric cave-burials in Zakro, B, S. A. VII, 
p. 148 and B.S.A, XII, p. 3. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 



175 



CONCLUSION. 

The proportion of incineration and of inhumation in the 
tombs described may be readily seen in the accompanying 
diagram. In cases where the number of skeletons could be 



Chamber-Tombs. 



Bone-Enclosures. 





I 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


1 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


II 


12 


1 1 
Inhumated Skeletons Child's 24 

1 


7 






3 


1 

i 










'child's jchild's 












Skeletons in Jars ! 




I 


■ ! 




























Doubtful 


+ 




+ 








+ 


























Cremated Remains in Earth. 


+ 




+ 


-h 




' + 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ ■ + 


+ + 


Cremated Remains in Jars. . . 3 






+ 






1 




+ 












i 
1 








1 

! 










1 

















Diagram Showing the Relation of incineration and Inhumation in the Burials at Vrokastro. 

observed the number is noted in the diagram, otherwise the 
occurrence of a given type of burial is indicated by a cross. 
When the bones are those of a young child, that fact is also 
noted. The liabilities to error in these observations are chiefly 
two: it is possible that cremated remains found loose in the 
earth had once been enclosed in jars, inasmuch as fragments 
of pottery were invariably found with the ashes and all pot- 
tery was broken. This, however, seems improbable in view 
of the fact that the bones were themselves so scattered. Again 
it is possible that distinction was not correctly drawn between 
burned and unburned bones. The difference between bones 
from which the flesh has been burned away and those from 
which the flesh has decayed away is a slight one, and it is 



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1/6 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. \l\. 

unnecessary to suppose that the fire in every case devoured 
the bones. This difficulty has, however, been at least par- 
tially obviated by relegating to a doubtful class the cases where 
the signs of burning were not unmistakable. Counting 
out such doubtful cases and also child-burials, the proportion 
of cremation in the chamber-tombs was fifty per cent; in 
the pithos-burials, which were distinct from tombs, cremation 
does not occur; in the bone-enclosures it reaches one hundred 
per cent. The natural inference from these facts is, of course, 
that the bone-enclosures are later than the built tombs. Until 
cremation had been universally adopted, chamber-tombs were 
still built for the dead, but when entire skeletons were no longer 
buried, and less space was needed, the simpler and easier method 
was adopted of burying ashes in the small compartments of 
bone-enclosures. 

If now this supposition be correct and the bone-enclosures 
are later than the tombs, the difference in method of burial 
will furnish what the stratification of Vrokastro did not, a 
line of demarcation between the earlier and later phases of the 
geometric civilization. It remains to review the pottery and 
bronzes to see if difl^erences are observable. 

One difference is salient. The biigelkanne which occurred in 
every chamber-tomb except No. 4, which, it will be remembered, 
was nearly empty, did not once occur in the bone-enclosures. 
Other shapes reminiscent of Mycenaean ceramic art and fre- 
quent in the chamber-tombs were lacking in the enclosures. 
These were the kylix, the askos, and the duck-shaped vase. 
With the exception of one flask from Bone-Enclosure VII and 
of one krater from Bone-Enclosure XI 1, these shapes were 
also lacking in the later type of interment. Types of pottery 
characteristic of the enclosures were the hydria, the geometric 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. I77 

amphora, and the small jugs of Fig. 97. The potsherds from 
these burials indicated that bowls with panel decoration were 
also characteristic. A comparative study of shapes, however, 
indicates neither that there was a hard and fast line between 
the ceramic art of the two periods, nor that separate interments 
of the two types were of the same date. Several shapes, the 
cup of Fig. 79, the small oinochoe, the flaring bowl. Fig. 99 D, 
are common to both. So indeed is the geometric type of 
amphora, although it is noteworthy that both this shape and the 
hydria occurred but once in the chamber-tombs and that in 
No. Ill which contained much less that was reminiscent of 
Mycenaean art than the others. 

As regards design, it is observable that the ornament is 
applied to vases from the tombs less compactly than to those 
from the enclosures. Together with this close style of orna- 
ment goes a tendency to confine the ornament to a panel and 
to. cover the rest of the vase either with solid black or with 
closely drawn horizontal bands. 

It must be admitted, however, that the force of these 
conclusions is somewhat weakened by the fact that the pottery 
from the enclosures was much less numerous than in the chamber- 
tombs. Fibulae, on the other hand, were even more numerous, 
and the evidence afforded by them accords with that yielded 
by the pottery. Two types frequent in the enclosures were 
absent in the built tombs. These are the symmetrical beaded 
fibula, PI. XX A, B, G, and J, and the geometric fibula of 
PI. XX E, H, and I. Morphologically, these types are both 
developments from a plainer type of pin like that of PI. XX C, 
D, and F, found in the tombs. 

We are thus warranted, 1 believe, in dividing the geometric 
remains of Vrokastro into an earlier and a later period accord- 



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178 ^ ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

ing to the method of burial practiced. Whether such a divi- 
sion will hold good for other Cretan sites of the iron age is 
uncertain. Both at Courtes and Rusty Ridge, Kavousi, vases 
of the fully developed geometric style were found in chamber- 
tombs. There is, however, a possibility that tombs built in 
the period of the quasi-geometric style were re-used in the 
succeeding era. Moreover, there is some evidence that else- 
where also a difference in method of burial differentiated these 
two periods. Mr. Hogarth found vases parallel to those from 
the bone-enclosures in "an oblong pit, roofless," which he 
seems to distinguish from tholoi. This may indicate another 
modification of the earlier chamber-tomb now rendered super- 
fluous by the universal adoption of cremation. 

But even if there shall be found to be local variations as 
to the time when chamber-tombs were abandoned and as to 
the type of tomb which succeeded them, this will not impair, 
I believe, the usefulness of the distinction indicated by the 
evidence at Vrokastro. 

Questions of chronology now confront us. Before con- 
sidering them it may be well to review the successive periods 
which have been traced at Vrokastro. The Middle Minoan 
period, since it is separated from the subsequent history of 
the site which chiefly concerns us by the long interval of 
the Middle Minoan III, the Late Minoan I, and the Late 
Minoan II periods, may be dismissed with two observations: 
First, that the fact of a Middle Minoan settlement on Vro- 
kastro is at variance with the current view that Minoan sites 
are to be found in low-lying areas; and second, that it is rare 
to find in eastern Crete pottery of the Middle Minoan period 
without finding above it pottery of the Late Minoan period. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 1 79 

Perhaps it was only the people of this latter period who did 
not live on hills. 

We come now to the main settlement on Vrokastro which 
lasted from the end of the bronze age nearly to the dawn of 
classical Greece. Three periods may be distinguished; they 
are as follows. 

I. The late Mycenaean period represented by the pottery 
from below floor levels in the town. Associated with this 
pottery were the fibulae of PI. XIX A and B. This period 
was not represented in the tombs at Vrokastro, but at other 
Cretan sites have been found larnakes and chamber-tombs 
of this era.^ This pottery is analogous to the L. M. II lb 
class of Mr. Dawkins, to the reoccupation style of Gournia, 
and to that of Tomb B at Mouliana.^ Some of this pottery 
is classed by Dr. Mackenzie as Achaean and is grouped by him 
with the succeeding division of our classification. That the 
closest relation exists between these two classes is indisputable 
and that Achaean influence had already made itself felt, is 
probable, but the fact (a) that this pottery differs materially 
from that found in the chamber-tombs at Vrokastro, and (b) 
that pottery of this type is not usually found associated with 
cremated burials, warrants, I believe, its separation from 
pottery of the period of the quasi-geometric style. 

II. The period of the quasi-geometric style, represented 
by the pottery from the chamber-tombs, which was associated 
with both cremated and uncremated remains, and with iron 
implements. The fibulae of this period are those intermediate 



» Boyd-Hawes, Gournia, pp. 45 and 46; B. S. A. yill, p. 303. 

* The cremated remains in Tomb A at Mouliana belong, apparently, with the pottery shown 
in *E^. *Apx-. 1904, p. 27, Fig. 6. 



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l80 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

between the fiddle-bow type and the beaded fibula. Emphasis 
may again be placed on the prevalence during this period of 
the Cypriote type of krater, which, as Dr. Mackenzie suggests, 
brings this class into connection with the warrior vase of 
Mycenae. In Crete, pottery of this type has been found in 
Tholos 6 at Knossos,^ in the earlier tombs of Kourtes,^ at 
Erganos,^ at Thunder Hill, Kavousi,^ and at Patela.^ Outside 
Crete the closest parallels are to be found at Salamis,^ at 
Assarlik,^ and at Skyros and Theotoku in Thessaly.* 

III. The geometric period represented by the pottery from 
the bone-enclosures. This pottery in shape and decoration is 
analogous to that found in the Dipylon cemetery, on Thera, 
and other geometric sites. It is invariably associated with 
crenriated remains. The fibulae of this period include the types 
of the foregoing period and also the beaded and geometric 
types. 

In determining the date of this last period, the close corre- 
spondence of the fibulae from the enclosures with those found 
in SchifT's grave on Thera is of prime importance. All types 
found in the Theran grave are present in the enclosures 
with the exception of the spectacle type and the hleinasiatisch 
fibula.^ The absence of these implies that the Vrokastro 
enclosures are slightly earlier in date than the Theran tomb, 
which was assigned by DragendorfT to the seventh century. 



' B. S. A. VI. p. 84. 

^A.J.A., i9or. PI. VIM. 

3 ibid. 

*Id..?\s. land If. 

^ A. J. A., 1897, p. 252. 

« Wide, loc. cit. 

' J. H.S. y/\\\,p.69. Figs. 4-8. 

* Wace and Thompson, op. cit., pp. 208-216, and p. 255. 

» Loc. cit., p. 300; Ahh., 489, t-w. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. l8l 

The resemblance of the small jugs of Fig. 97 to those from Schiff 's 
grave confirms this conclusion. At Aigina, beaded fibulae were 
assigned to the end of the eighth and the beginning of the seventh 
century.^ The spectacle fibula is generally held to date from 
the early part of the seventh century b. c.^ We, therefore, 
obtain as provisional dates for the third period the eighth 
century b. c. If the absence of the spectacle fibula be a matter 
of chance, an even later date might be assigned. 

The best evidence for dating the period of the quasi- 
geometric style is afforded by the tripod from Chamber-Tomb 
I and by the fibulae. Accepting Furtwangler's date for the 
Enkomi tripod as about 1000 a. c, we may assign the second 
class of pottery to the beginning of the first millennium b. c, 
and, allowing an equally long interval for either division of the 
geometric style, we obtain 1000-850 a. c. as provisional dates 
for the period of the quasi-geometric style and 850 to 700 b. c. 
for the period of the mature geometric style. 

Of still more absorbing interest than chronological problems 
are questions of ethnology. If geometric pottery be held in 
general to be the product of the Dorian race, then the third 
period represents the Dorian invasion of Crete. The pottery 
of the first period, in view of its resemblance to mainland types, 
must be assigned to the Mycenaeans. Yet even in this period 
a new influence is observable. Mr. Dawkins and Dr. Mac- 
kenzie have shown that the introduction of a Cypriote type 
of krater and of the geometric type of bowl indicate affinities^ 
with the succeeding period. This new influence I believe 
Dr. Mackenzie right in ascribing to the Achaeans. To the 



^ Mgina, pp. 474-475- 
2fl. 5. /^. XIII, p. 72. 
3 B. S. A. IX, p. 320 and id., XIII, p. 434. 



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l82 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 

Achaeans then may be provisionally assigned the quasi-geometric 
pottery of the second class.^ 

If these theories be correct, the remains of Vrokastro 
record three great invasions of Crete from the North, those 
of the Mycenaeans, the Achaeans, and the Dorians. 

* Further evidence for this theory is afforded by the excavations carried on by Messrs. 
Wace and Thompson at Halos in Achaia Phthiotis, where pottery has come to light, which 
bears the closest resemblance to that from Vrokastro. I regret that the very useful article 
in B. S. A. XVI 11, pp. 1-29 reached me so late as to make it imp6ssible to compare the 
two wares in detail. 



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E. H. HALL — EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 1 83 



APPENDIX. 

Note on an Early Minoan II Cave-Burial at Ayios 

Andoni. 

In 191 2, while the weather was still so unsettled as to 
prevent pitching camp on Vrokastro, trial excavations were 
conducted in the neighborhood of Kavousi. Along the bed of 
the river which runs to the north of the village were found 
several rectangular chamber-tombs analogous to those described 
in the foregoing report but containing little else than fragments 
of bones and small biigelkannen of poor clay. Of greater 
interest was an Early Minoan II burial located in a cave-like 
recess on the steep hillside immediately above the little church 
of Ayios Andoni f Ayio? *Apt6vl). 

The objects found in this grave were as follows. 

1. Veined marble bowl, intact, ht. .67 m., diam. .127 m. 

2. Fragments of an alabaster jug similar to that published 
by Mr. Seager in Explorations on the Island of Mochlos, PI. 
V, VI, 2. 

3. Sherds of Early Minoan II red and black mottled ware; 
of a fine polished gray ware; and of Early Minoan III light on 
dark ware. 

4. Clay pot with suspension handles of reddish ware, ht. 
.063 m. 

5. Small jug of red clay, ht. .105 m., similar to that pub- 
lished by Mr. Seager, loc, cit,, Fig. 7, II b. 

6. Three-legged cooking-pot, ht. .094 m. 

7. Large gourd-shaped vase, ht. .137 m., with suspension 



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1 84 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV, OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



handles. The objects other than pottery from this tomb are 
shown in Fig. 107. They are as follows. 

1. Steatite beads of various shapes, conspicuous among 
which are three cylindrical beads with ribbed surface. 

2. Two bronze blades, closely analogous to blades from 
Mochlos, loc, cit,, Fig. 45. 




Fig. 107. Early Minoan II Objects from a Cave Burial at Ayios Andoni 
near Kavousi (2 : 3). 

3. Silver disk with central and marginal perforations. 

4. Bronze borers. 

5. Ivory pendant in the form of a pig, Fig. 108. 

6. Three curls, two of silver, one of bronze, for confining 
locks of hair. These curls are similar to those found in the 



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E. H. HALL— EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE, VROKASTRO. 185 

second stratum at Troy (W. Doerpfeld, Troia und Ilion, Beilage 
43, p. 352 and p. 358), and furnish accordingly further evidence 
for equating the second stratum at Troy with the Early Minoan 
period in Crete. 




Fig. 108. Ivory Pig from Cave Burial, Ayios Andoni, near Kavousi (2 : 3). 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



PLATE XIX. 




FlBUlyE FROM ToWN AND ToMBS ( I ! l) 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



PLATE XX. 




Types of FiBULyt from Town and Tombs (3 : 4). 



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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM, VOL. III. 



PLATE XXI. 




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Types of Bronze and Iron Blades from Town and Tombs (i : 2). 



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ANTHR. PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM VOL. Ill 



PLATE XXIV 




DOORWAY OF HOUSE, VROKASTRO 










BUILDING ADJACENT TO BONE-ENCLOSURES. KARAKOVILIA. 



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ANTHR. PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM VOL. Ill 



PLATE XXVII 







1. BUGELKANNE FROM PITHOS-BUR I AL, KHAVGA. SCALE I : 2. 

2. BOV^L AND COVER FROM CHAMBER-TOMB III. KARAKOVILIA. SCALE I : 2 

3. HYDRIA FROM TOWN. VROKASTRO. SCALE 2 : 5. 

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ANTHR. PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM VOL. Ill 



PLATE XXVIII 




AMPHORA OF THE MATURE GEOMETRIC STYLE. VROKASTRO. SCALE. I : 5. 



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ANTHR. PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM VOL. Ill 



PLATE XXXI 





OPEN-WORK VASES FROM CHAMBER-TOMB I, KARAKOVILIA. SCALE I : 2. 



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ANTHR. PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM VOL. Ill 



PLATE XXXIII 




AMPHORA OF THE QUASI-GEOMETRIC STYLE FROM CHAMBER TOMB I. 
KARAKOVILIA. SCALE I : 2. 



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ANTHR. PUB. UNIV. OF PA. MUSEUM VOL. Ill 



PLATE XXXV 







FAIENCE BEADS AND SEALS FROM CHAMBER TOMB I. KARAKOVILIA 

AND CHAMBER TOMB IV AMIGTHALI. SCALE I : 2. Digitized by 



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